The Author's POV

Chapter 5: Sword art [1]

If nothing had changed then the sword art should be located a couple of kilometers behind the Clayton ridge.

It took me 5 hours to hike all the way down the mountain, and a further 10 hours to reach the approximate area of where the sword art was located.

A large forest that spammed over several kilometers appeared before my view, and as I reached the entrance of the forest, without even thinking twice I chose to enter.

Although I was exhausted from constantly moving all day, I decided to grit my teeth and continue my journey.

Some might say I was too impatient with regards to how I was neglecting my body in search of cheat items, but I beg to differ. Not only was I reincarnated inside a world where the weak were prey to the strong, but in the near future, if one was not strong enough, only death awaited them.

If I want to be strong enough in hopes to overcome the certain death flags that awaited me, my only option was to increase my strength as much as possible.

Every minute that I saved was a minute I could use to train myself.

Despite being dark outside my vision was fairly unaffected, partly due to my improved body condition which was all due to the miraculous fruit I had previously eaten. The only problem was the fact that I was in the middle of a forest. So even if my visibility was clear it was still hard to make out what was in front of me.

"If I don't remember wrong there should be a river nearby"

My current goal as of now was to look out for a river that directly flowed from the highest peak of the Clayton ridge.

'For thy that seek the way of the sword follow the road flowing through the highest peak'

When the protagonist was clearing a dungeon he stumbled across three ancient scrolls that were neatly laid next to each other, and the content of one of the scrolls had those precise words inscribed on them.

At first, the protagonist didn't understand the meaning of the words in the scroll, but eventually with the aid of one of his companions he managed to figure out the meaning of those words. Sadly by the time he had figured out what the contents of the scroll were about, it was already too late as the protagonist had already learned the [Levisha style] sword art.

But this was perfectly fine with me as I really liked the [Keiki style]

In simple terms, the scroll was telling the protagonist to follow the river coming from the highest peak of the Clayton ridge. The word 'road' accompanied by 'flowed' referred to a river and 'highest peak' referred to the highest mountain within the human territory which was in the Clayton ridge.

And right now I was looking for that exact river.

It didn't take long for me to find the river, but by the time I found it I was really exhausted. I think I've been at it for more than 18 hours at this point. No matter how much I wanted to continue, my body would just refuse to listen to me, and thus l was left with no choice but to camp near the river.

These past two days could probably add up to the total amount of exercise I've done in the last decade of my life. Never before had I done this much physical activity, even if I had condensed mana and my body could keep up, I don't think the same could be said for my mental state…as I felt my thought process diminish with every passing second I continued moving.

The first thing I did once I arrived at the river was to immediately refill my water bottle. I have been drinking moderately to save water, but it was a needless worry.

===

Title : Compressed water bottle

Rank : (G+)

Description : Water bottle with the ability to store up to 50 liters of water without affecting the weight

===

I mean, this water bottle could store up to 50 liters of water.

Wasn't that totally awesome?

Before leaving for the Clayton ridge, I picked up this little baby at the train station, and I couldn't say I was dissatisfied with it.

Not only could it hold up to 50 liters of water, but thanks to its advanced technology it could also reduce the weight of the contents by a factor of 10, meaning that a filled water bottle would only weigh 5kg.

Well, that last feature was a must as…I mean what was the point of carrying a bottle that could hold up to 50 liters of water when you couldn't even hold it?

The thing that most shocked me about the water bottle wasn't its amazing technology, no it was actually its price.

It only cost me 20 U.

The U was the currency that was used in this world and it stood for Union, which was the current association overlooking humanity, besides the central government that was an alliance between the biggest nations from before the second cataclysm began.

The union was currently the foremost organization in the human domain, which only the central government could control.

Even the biggest guilds operating do not dare challenge the authority of the union as it would spell permanent doom if they clashed against them. The union has the highest number of S-ranked heroes at its disposal making it a behemoth that stood at the peak of humanity.

What makes the Union especially fearsome was not the fact that they had the most amount of S-ranked Heroes at their disposal.

No

It was their leaders.

The 'seven heads of the Union'

Each with the power that far surpasses S rank, breaking through to the legendary SS rank.

Currently, there only exist 15 SS rank Heroes in the human domain, and out of all of them, 7 are part of the Union, making the Union the main powerhouse in the human domain.

Each head was a single-digit ranker in the Hero ranking, which depicts the strongest members of humanity.

The Hero system was a system created by the central government and ranks an individual based on their achievements and strength.

This was a system that was created with the purpose of motivating individuals to become stronger, as not only does this bring glory to their name, but appropriate monetary compensation was given every year to top-ranking Heroes.

Since the second cataclysm, humanity has been split into two factions Heroes, and villains.

Where the villains were individuals that were categorized based on the crimes they had committed.

The central government has placed a bounty on the head of each villain, and the reward increases as the rank of the villain increases.

But to truly be characterized as a villain, an individual must sign a pact with a demon. That was a pledge to devote their lives to the demons, in which the demon in return grants them part of their power.

As demons were currently in a standoff against multiple races, in order to weaken their opponents they resorted to methods that created internal strife, and by giving power to individuals who were willing to follow their command for the sake of power, they successfully managed to continuously weaken their enemies.

This formula which has worked for eons allowed demons to propel themselves into becoming a dominant race across the universe.

Facing the constant pressure from the demons both externally and internally, only an organization such as the Union could barely keep the power balance among humanity in check.

Currently, I had 250 U with me, but if I needed more money I could just ask my parents.

Forgot to say this but when I was reincarnated in this world I found out that I had a mother a father and a little sister who was only two years old. More importantly, apparently, my father was the guild master of a medium-small sized guild called 'Galxicus'.

Because I have no recollection of ever including this guild in my novel, it could only mean two things. It was either too insignificant to the plotline, or that my reincarnation has had a butterfly effect on the story and thus created Galxicus. I honestly prefer the first option as the second option would mean that some events will deviate from the story which brings an element of uncertainty to the story that I know.

Letting out a sigh I take out a small cube from my bag. I then proceeded to press a small button on top of the cube and threw it on the ground.

-Sham!

Immediately the cube enlarged into a large blue tent that was around the size of one room.

Watching the cube automatically unfold before my eyes I couldn't help but let out a gasp of amazement.

===

Title : Compressed tent

Rank : (G+)

Description : Using the skin of a Blood curling bat, a 2 meters squared tent can be erected with a single press of a button.

===

It's so cool.

If I had this stuff back in the world I lived in I would totally go camping. I mean I could literally set up the tent in seconds without going through the trouble of actually setting the tent.

Looking inside the tent I couldn't help but nod in satisfaction. It was empty but it was really spacious. It could totally fit in more than five people, and more if we were to really push it. Moreover, since it was made from the skin of a blood-curling bat a G-ranked beast, it was far more durable than normal plastic and some could say it was comparable to some metals in terms of durability, making it an extremely good tent.

Taking out my sleeping equipment, I comfortably lay inside the tent and closed my eyes. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep within a couple of seconds of me laying down.

The next day after packing up my stuff and eating breakfast in the form of an energy bar, I continued my journey towards the 5-star martial manual by walking alongside the river.

The good news was that I knew what I was looking for as I proceeded forwards. The bad news, on the other hand, was that I had no idea how long I needed to walk before finding what I was looking for.

I could only lament at myself for being lazy. When I was writing the traveling scenes I completely left out the important information such as how long the protagonist walked or sometimes I even skipped that all together and just made the protagonist arrive at the destination by omitting his journey.

Thus even if there was a cheat item I really want to get, I wouldn't even know where to look as my lazy self did not write where the place was. I only wrote the general area. But that was also useless because some areas were so big that it would take me years to explore. Moreover, I also excluded the dangers lurking around the area, making the chances of finding the cheat item even slimmer.

You couldn't really blame me though. I mean who'd expects themselves to suddenly be thrown inside of their own novel? Plus, I skipped the traveling scenes because they were simply too boring.

Stopping myself I stared at a strange rock before me. The rock was oddly shaped and its outline resembled that of a samurai that held a sword on top of its head. I say resembled, but it was currently covered under moss and vines, making so that if one did not look carefully they would've never been able to spot this.

Of course, I knew why it looked that way, as it wasn't actually a rock but a statue in memory of grandmaster Keiki.

As time passed the statue slowly deteriorated making it look like an oddly shaped rock to anyone who would pass by.

Sitting down I lay a small cloth and sat on it.

"And now we just wait"

What I was waiting for was for the sun to set, as only when the sun sets would I know exactly where to go. The statue was made by Grandmaster Keiki back when he was still alive and was designed so that every sunset would point where his tomb remained.

From this point on I was strictly following what I wrote about how to find the tomb of grandmaster Keiki.

In the first place the protagonist never actually bothered coming here, as he didn't choose the [Keiki style] but the [Levisha style], making this the first time anyone actually came here.

It didn't take long for the sun to finally start to set, and precisely when the sun moved right above the statue that a golden line emerged from the tip of the sword. Looking at where the line went, I could approximately determine that it was pointing northwest towards what seemed to be a large but inconspicuous tree far off in the distance.

"Bingo!"

Smiling widely I immediately took a mental note of the tree and made a run for it.

It takes approximately 150 to 200 seconds for the sun to set. That means that I only had that little amount of time to run from the statue to the tree or at least close to the tree which was at least a kilometer away from where I was.

If I didn't make it close to the tree by the time the sun sets, I would easily lose sight of the tree as apart from being slightly larger than any other tree, it looked exactly the same as any other tree in the area.

If not for the statue directly pointing at the three, I would've never been able to know where to go.

"Huff, Huff, Huff"

Arriving with heavy breathes I slumped down in front of the tree.

I was totally exhausted. I sprinted at full speed in a rough terrain until I made it in front of the tree.

By the time I had arrived the sun had already set, but I didn't care as I had already reached my objective

"Now what should I do?"

Even though I was the author I was totally clueless in regards to what I should do next as I had never written a scene where the protagonist went to grandmaster Keiki's tomb. I didn't even know if there were any traps or trials inside of the tomb.

The only thing I knew was that the tomb was somewhere near this tree in front of me.

Carefully looking around the tree, I notice a root that stuck out from the ground. Placing my hands on it I noticed that it was fairly loose compared to the other roots that were firmly etched on the ground.

Without a second thought, I immediately pulled the root with all my power

-Snap!

With a loud sound, the root directly ripped off from the ground, revealing a small hole that could fit a single person.

Throwing the root to the side, I immediately made my way inside of the small hole.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the hole was the everything above the tree was hollow, and a single rope dangled from the top of the tree.

-Gulp

Following my line of sight, I involuntarily gulped as I noticed the rope that was dangling from the top of the tree going all the way down inside of a pitch-black bottomless hole in the middle of the ground.

Looking down the hole I couldn't help but feel cold sweat drip from my back, as it truly did look like there was no end to the hole.

Gathering up my courage I held tightly onto the rope and slowly made my descent down the hole.

1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 5 hours, by the time my hands were numb, I had lost count of how long I had been going down the rope.

My arms and my core at this point were starting to burn from the pain of continuously going down the rope, and before I knew it, my mental state was also degrading.

Still, regardless of how much I was suffering I endured the pain and continued making my way down the hole.

😉