1 01 - Elder Worlds
"Shit…" Arthur said angrily as he stared at the Griffin flying away.
He knew it would happen one day, but he never thought they would do it in such a rude way.
Frustrated, he looked ahead and saw what looked like a ruined city. A big place that looked like something that was once a town hall, a broken-down tower that looked like a wizards tower, even a farm full of weeds... everything was destroyed.
"How am I supposed to live here? And worse, how am I supposed to make a sect here!?" Arthur was even more frustrated.
Arthur is a transmigrator. He came to this medieval world two years ago as a nobleman, but other than what he thought, where he could eat good food, enjoy beauty and many privileges, in fact, Arthur was known as the bastard of the Count, so everyone stopped him, speaking badly behind the Count's back, especially the Countess and her children, who openly humiliated him during the two years.
But as hard as life was in this world, there was something Arthur had fallen in love with, Magic!
Not just magic, but magical abilities! There were magical abilities for warriors, archers, assassins, mages, healers, as well as a game Arthur loved, Sky! People with mana could train magical skills taught to them by the teachers, both spells and fireballs, how to set the sword on fire to do more damage, stay invisible, anything was possible.
Unfortunately, only one in ten people were born with mana, and the talent of the vast majority of people was terrible.
As a bastard of the Count, Arthur had no right to learn magic, but one day he managed to get into the family library without anyone noticing and he finally found out he had mana! And worse, his talent was very high making him able to learn some basic skills in a short time.
Muscle Amplification, which increases a person's damage and stamina.
Control Over Flames, which allowed the user to control the flames and use it as they wished.
Control Over Water, which was the counterpart of Control Over Flames.
And lastly Mana Inject, which allows the user to inject mana into objects such as knives to make it sharper and more lethal.
Of course, despite his talent, Arthur didn't learn all these skills instantly, he copied the content of those skills to a notebook and started studying it every night. When he could use one of the skills, Arthur started studying the other skill, until the point of being able to use the four skills masterfully.
The problem was that a servant found Arthur's notebook while he was sleeping, and when the Countess learned of this, she became furious and demanded that the Count expel Arthur from their house for disobedience.
She knew that people with mana were much more likely to succeed in the world, and despite not knowing Arthur's talent, she didn't want to risk letting him live with her children, enabling the young man to overshadow the true heirs of the Shire.
The Count was a little doubtful, but after the Countess said that Arthur had really learned the spells and that it would be good for his growth, he obeyed the countess and expelled Arthur with the excuse that he should have experience for the future, that he should found a sect.
After all, in the Count's mind, for Arthur to be able to study spells, he must have a decent talent, so going out to found a sect must be the basic thing he should do. Even if the sect only accepts commoners, this would already bring significant new strength to the Shire, as the only Level 2 sect that existed here was destroyed hundreds of years ago.
He knew that Arthur couldn't found a Level 2 sect, but letting the bastard found a sect that reached Level 1 in a few decades would be enough for the boy to pay the expenses he's had since birth.
In this world, Sects are classified as Level 1, which has the strength and influence of a Baron, Level 2, which has the strength and influence of an Earl, Level 3, which has the strength and influence of a Marquis, and Level 4 which has the strength and influence of a Duke. Many centuries ago there was a Level 5 Sect, which was as powerful as the King, but because of a dispute with the Royal family, this Sect became the enemy of the realm and was destroyed by the nobles and the sects that obeyed them.
Arthur already knew that he would be kicked out of the family someday, but he never imagined that he would have to found a Sect! Usually people who founded sects are powerful warriors or mages, powerful enough to teach disciples what they know, only Arthur only knew 4 basic spells, who would accept him as master and join his sect? Maybe some beggars or untalented commoners, but what difference would that make for him?
And worst of all, as soon as they arrived at the place where Arthur was supposed to found the sect, the family servants just dumped him in an abandoned sect and left, not even leaving him with food or anything.
This Sect was surrounded by forests and mountains, places with monsters so powerful that even unprepared knights and wizards would die in one night. Arthur, who hadn't even fought a person until today, would have a hard time surviving in this place with his current strength.
'This place must have been planned by the Countess…' Alex sighed and began to explore the place.
Everything in this abandoned sect was destroyed, the only useful thing was some fruits that Arthur found in some trees near the entrance of the place to satisfy his hunger.
But suddenly, Arthur heard something that excited him.
[Ding, the Divine Sect Master System has been activated! ]
"What?!" Arthur was shocked. He spent two years in this world without seeing or hearing anything related to a system, and now it's come up? "Did I need a certain occult condition... like becoming a Sect Master?!" He was excited.
Arthur knew that Systems tended to make hosts much stronger than people without it, which for him in this situation would be very helpful!
[The host has been given the title of Divine Sect Master, but as the Host has no disciples and there is no person within 2,000 km in any direction, the host can request disciples from another world. ]
[Which world does the host want to request?]
Arthur was even more shocked. He knew that if he depended on his own strength to get disciples, he would hardly get someone useful for him, at most he could last a few years before dying in this place, but now he had the chance to call people from other worlds, this is amazing!
But here comes the question, where to get disciples, Arthur knew he didn't have much to teach these people from other worlds... especially worlds that already existed magic, unless his disciples also came from Earth!
"System, can I request that my disciples come from Earth with a VR system?" Arthur asked a little apprehensively.
[Make it better, host.]
"Instead of bringing in my disciples' bodies directly, can you just create a VR device for the disciples to come here like this is a game? You can search my memory for similar information from books I've read and anime I've watched. There were some stories where the person wore a virtual reality helmet and could enter a virtual world, feeling it as if it were another life, but if he wanted he could leave at any time." Arthur explained patiently.
He was a little nervous when the system didn't respond and was silent, apparently calculating the possibilities, but Arthur's heart slackened by the system's response.
[It's possible, but because of that the number of disciples supported will be reduced, are you sure?]
Arthur knew that even though he could solicit 10,000 otherworldly disciples, he didn't have the structure to support so many people, nor enough knowledge to teach so many.
"This is great, how will this work?" Arthur said excitedly.
[The host will have to design a website to appear on Earth, in addition to a promotional video. System will be tasked with finding the most useful humans to be disciples. Divine Sect Master System 1.0 only supports 100 people in a sect under these conditions, so only 99 disciples will be accepted. ]
"Fantastic, I already have some ideas on how to do this..." Arthur began planning how to make the website and promotional video.
---
"Hey Tony, have you heard of Elder Worlds?"
"Elder Worlds? What is this?"
"Hehe, it looks like a game from a company that is trying to cheat players of their money."
"???"
"I won't explain, look at this link:"
Tony was curious about the message his friend sent him. Normally Tony is the type of gamer who plays any kind of interesting game, but over time, the gaming industry has become a cash machine, every game he's tried to play lately is a 'Pay-To-Win', which frustrates players with little money, like him, a lot.
Mainly because Tony's favorite genre is MMORPG, which was one of the sectors most affected by Pay-To-Win gameplay, as like almost every game, the player can buy the strongest weapons with real money, or buy some kind of boosts to stand in front of the other players, completely killing the urge of many players to play it.
So when he accessed the page his friend sent, Tony felt a little excited, but very fearful, afraid it was a Pay-To-Win game.
The game page was very beautiful, right off the bat he could see dragons flying across the page, a tower in the bottom corner with men wearing cloth clothes and pointy hats, even now and then he could see some shadows moving looking quite like hidden assassins waiting to kill someone.
This was just the game's home page, not even a video was playing.
Tony was shocked by this, he had never seen a game page so alive and with such good graphics, everything he was seeing looked very real, almost to the point where he actually thought he was in another world.
But realizing it's an MMORPG world, Tony controlled himself a bit and tried to resist the temptation to imagine that this is a good thing because of the bad experiences he's had while playing other recent games that have disappointed him a lot.
In the center of the screen was a video player, where he could watch the game's promotional trailer. Out of curiosity, Tony clicked to launch this trailer and see what this game was promising players.
[Divine Game Studio]
'A company I've never heard of... maybe it's an indie company?' Tony thought with a bit of happiness, since unlike the big game companies, the indie companies usually stuck more for quality than for making the player spend money on loot-boxes.
Unfortunately, being indie companies this meant they had little money, making these companies have to make the game's graphics weaker and try to make up for it with a more engaging story.
As soon as the company logo disappeared, a message appeared.
[An unknown world.] A message appeared on the screen before the scene appeared.
A huge forest has emerged, with more realistic graphics than videos shot in real life with 4k cameras!
[Places unexplored by civilization.] Another message appeared.
A mountain larger than Mount Everest covered in snow, its peak hidden by clouds.
[Lots of resources available, but only for those brave enough to fight it.]
A cave with glowing ores illuminating the interior and outlining a huge figure sleeping at the bottom of it.
Tony's heart was almost coming out of his mouth after seeing these images, everything he saw had a prettier graphic than the other, and everything he saw awakened inside him the desire to enter this world and conquer it all!
"This doesn't just look like an indie game..." He told himself in a low voice.
The video continued showing different places, with increasingly beautiful scenery.
[But only the strong survive, the weak will be swallowed...]
Suddenly, the image changed to a destroyed and abandoned city.
Finally, the scene changed to a very handsome young man, with very light blond hair, wearing a noble blue outfit while doing some movement with his arms beside a lake with his eyes closed.
Initially Tony thought that this young man was dancing or something, but suddenly, in his vision, the water in the lake started to move! Initially it was just bubbling, until the young man raised his hand and a large oriental water dragon came out of the lake!
The dragon did a few turns in the air before flying towards the camera, until the young man opened his blue eyes and a small smile formed in the corner of his face.
[Do you have the courage to join this world?]
It was the last message that appeared on the screen before the promo video ended.
But even though the video was less than 5 minutes long, Tony was breathless. His body hair was all standing on end, while his back was soaked with cold sweat!
For a second, Tony thought that the dragon would actually kill him!
"That was so real…" Tony sighed as he drank some water to calm himself down.
Tony was 23 years old, he's been playing MMORPGs for over 10 years, so he thought he had tried everything these games could offer, but who knew after so long feeling that his passion for this genre of games had died, would suddenly resurface again?
And worse, it resurfaced strong to the point where Tony didn't even care about the price tag this game would take and felt he needed to play it at all costs!
On Earth, Tony wasn't the only one who was feeling this way. Around the world, several 'Tonys' had the same feeling.
