A strong wind caused a tree branch to beat against Jay’s window, stirring him awake.

“Ah, finally, today is the day of my class awakening” thought Jay as he got out of bed with a spring in his step.

He freshened up with some water before making his way downstairs for breakfast.

Cooking up a fish, Jay began scoffing it down as he thought about how his life was going to change, getting more enthused with each passing second.

For a moment, he gazed out the window at some mist-sheep in a nearby field, watching as they phased in and out of the mist – disappearing and reappearing.

Since Jay watched the sheep every morning as he ate breakfast alone, he began to feel a little sentimental.

“This might be the last week I live in this village…” he thought with a solemn smile before cleaning up his plate.

Today was the day he would get his class, it would open up new opportunities in his life, and allow him to leave this small, quiet village – and nothing was going to stop him from enjoying every moment.

“The wait is almost over,” smiled Jay, thinking he could finally start killing monsters, levelling up, and officially start his journey as an adventurer.

“But the first step is touching the mana conduit.”

Getting up from breakfast, Jay left his small house, which was a two story butchery. He started walking towards the only building in town with a mana conduit: the Adventurers guild.

The mana conduit was a large magic crystal that gave adventurers their class when they touched it.

By law, everyone who turned 18 years old that year must place their hand on a mana conduit on the 7th day of the 7th month. This is done in order to gain a class, and no one would ever break this rule, as getting a class benefited everyone.

After all, not getting a class would mean you would get no skills, abilities or magic power.

Without those, you would have to live a quiet, boring life; a punishment for someone like Jay.

Looking at the dark cloudy sky as he walked through the stone streets, he frowned slightly._.

“Ah, just my luck, rain… Better pull over my hood” He thought as he pulled up black hood.

“The rain sucks, but today is still going to be great though, a little rain won’t dampen my mood” he encouraged himself with a chuckle, smiling under his hood.

Walking along the muddy path towards the adventurers guild, Jay was tempted to curse at the dreary weather as it started to sprinkle a little more heavily now.

Meanwhile, more thick, dark clouds gathered overhead – blocking out any chances of sunlight gleaming through.

Jay pursed his lips; he would’ve stayed home if he had the choice – however, if someone failed to reach a mana conduit then they wouldn’t get a class.

They would be cursed to live a life as a mediocre civilian at the mercy of the beasts, monsters and other races in this magical and medieval world; so on this special day, even snow would not stop Jay.

With a sigh, Jay pushed on.

“Halfway up the mountain now, nearly there… I hope my practice with the knife gives me a cool swordsman class.” he thought to himself.

“Surely the system will take into account that I’ve been using a knife as a butcher for the last few years… Ooo, maybe it will even give me a rare passive ability…” his eyes became more excited.

Jay walked faster thinking about the possibilities, excited about becoming a powerful swordsman and having legendary adventures.

No more was life going to be mundane, making money as a butcher to get by.

After Jay’s father moved to another village to start a second butcher shop, he took over the business here in Losla. There was little contact between Jay and his father, who may as well have been dead since Jay never received as much as a letter from him; part of him felt abandoned.

Jay cast these sad thoughts aside and kept walking, each step bringing him closer to a new life.

The muddy road to the adventurer association curved up around a hill which overlooked the village, dodging rocky outcrops as it led to the adventurers association gate.

There were a few other people walking up the dirt road too. Some spoke to each other and walked together, but most kept to themselves; the dark weather suppressing any chance of a warm conversation.

The hill was large and the path was long, causing Jay to start sweating slightly as he started to pant.

“I’m pretty unfit” he thought as he started huffing.

“I should’ve started training or something… oh well.” he shook his head.

Suddenly, a deep man’s voice called out from behind, startling most of the young adventurers on the road. A large bulky man clad in armour was riding a horse ahead of a carriage.

“Make way for nobility!” he called out, his raspy voice had the airy authority of a war-torn veteran.

With a short sword strapped to his waist, he rode on a black glade-horse ahead of a luxurious carriage as he continued to call out; the man didn’t even turn his head towards Jay, expecting anyone to move at his call.

The safety of the young noble was clearly his only priority.

The knight was overqualified for his position – anyone could tell that the knight was bored just by looking at him, yet he still emitted a kind of dangerous pressure when he came closer.

As he rode past, a trail of steam followed him – his sword’s sheath releasing steam when droplets of rain landed on it.

“Must have a ruby gem. Heh, must be nice being rich.” thought Jay secretly, not risking to say it out loud.

In this world, gems gave weapons attributes. In this instance, there was a ruby gem socketed into the short sword, which gave the sword +3 fire damage. A passive effect was that it felt warm to the touch.

When drawn, the sword would glow red-hot, able to carve through flesh like paper and only leaving a cauterised wound behind. A wound such as this would block instantaneous healing abilities. One would have to cut off the cauterisation before even attempting to heal it.

It was common to see these gems socketed into larger objects, but to put them into smaller objects like swords required great skill.

The fire attribute had to be channelled into the blade and not into the handle, lest it burn the wielder. This is what made the weapon so expensive; generally the smaller a socketed object, the more expensive it was.

Jay did his best to move to the side of the path, getting out of the way of the rich knight.

The hill was steep at the edge of the road, it had been built up to make a slightly wider path, though over time it had degraded.

Standing on the edge of the road to give way to the carriage, Jay realised that he didn’t have enough room – but it was too late to do anything about it.

Having no choice but to dodge the oncoming carriage, he stepped backwards towards the edge. Suddenly the side of the path crumbled and he started to slip – the rain helped in making a bad situation worse as it was all turning to slippery mud by now.

“Shit, ah!” Jay attempted to plant his foot firmly on the ground, but the mud caused Jay to just slip further down.

He began to lose balance as he yelled, hoping someone would hear him – and someone did.

A chuckle came from the carriage, and as Jay fell, a mocking smirk flashed at him ever so briefly through the carriage’s curtains.

“Wow, it’s like they’re almost glad that I’m being pushed off the road and into the mud, little bastard.” he thought as he tried to gain his balance – yet unsuccessfully.

Jay fell over onto his shoulder as he slid a little way down the side of the hill.

“You asshole in your shitty carriage!” Jay yellow, gritting his teeth in anger as he slid down; he only began picking up more speed and sliding faster in the rain and mud.

Spotting a shrub as he slid down, he grabbed at it to stop himself from sliding further.

“Graaah!” he grasped the small bush with all his strength, yet neither Jay or the bush came out unscathed.

Jay finally came to a stop as half of the plant’s roots were pulled up. His hand began stinging as it turned red, hurting more than his shoulder now as he just stripped away half of the leaves from the plant.

Using the shrub as balance, he stood up slowly, yet was quickly filled with anger.

“Dammit, will they even let me in now? I’m so filthy, they will think I’m a beggar… and that little bastard in the carriage was basically laughing at me. Prick!” he snapped in frustration, clenching his fist as he noticed the carriage wasn’t even there anymore – it didn’t even stop to help.

“Little fucking bastard…” his brows furrowed in anger, swearing through his clenched jaw as he looked at the brown slide he made down the hill.

Walking back up the muddy hill to get to the road, Jay’s anger still seethed – yet this only caused him to lose his concentration, and with it, his balance.

“Fucker… little carriage bastard fucker… ~Oh, wait. Shit!” Once more, he fell backwards.

“Shit, shit, shiiiii!!-”

The back of his head landing squarely on a rock, and Jay instantly lost consciousness.

His unconscious body continued sliding down the hill for a moment before stopping near some bushes.

Sadly for Jay, no one saw him fall or even heard him yell in the pouring rain – he was alone, knocked unconscious and caught in some bushes.

—

“KAW~!”

“…wha?- AH!” A silver crow shocked Jay awake, flying away when Jay’s eyes opened widely.

Jay sat up quickly, trying to make himself look more lifelike as he realised the crow was about to start eating him as if he were some roadkill.

It was still close to Winter, and at this point Jay was shivering, his clothes drenched with rain. He couldn’t tell how long he had been unconscious as it was still overcast, but it didn’t matter very much right now – he was freezing.

“I need….. to get warm… so cold… need… warmth…” his teeth chattering, his lips blue, and his fingers white. He could hardly form sentences.

Survival instincts kicked in as Jay started to jog to the village inn. He would’ve gone home but he knew that his shivering hands wouldn’t have been able to start a fire.

“I-I’m so hungry, so thirsty. How long w-was I knocked out?” he asked himself as he jogged, trying to warm himself up.

It was still overcast and early in the morning when he finally made it to the only inn in the village.

Stumbling through the wooden door of the Snakeraven inn, Jay quickly walked towards the innkeeper standing behind the bar ready to place his order – however the middle-aged bald man with a twirling moustache took the initiative to speak first.

“Hello…? I’m Devin. How.. can I help..?” the innkeeper asked, squinting at Jay as he wondered whether he should kick this dirty mud-covered bum out or not.

“I’m not getting paid enough for this shit” The innkeeper thought, looking at the tracks of mud Jay was making through his establishment before realising he was his own boss.

“O-one room please, and a hot bath im-immediately! I’m f-freezing!” Jay said through his chattering teeth.

“Sure. That will be 25 gold.” The innkeeper eyed Jay’s waist for a coin pouch.

“It will cost you more if you stay for longer though. And about your bath, it will cost 5 gold for the ruby-bath which heats up water instantly; otherwise we normally heat up water over the fire which would take quite some time.”

The innkeeper explained, casually peering at the thick mud on Jay’s clothes.

“Ah.. would you like laundry service too? For 5 gold?”

“Obviously I want the fucking ruby-bath, I’m literally shivering in front of you, you absolute fu-” Jay thought for a moment before he exhaled angrily and then smiled with dead eyes, replying with an almost sarcastic tone.

“Yes, I would like my clothes washed and I would like the ruby tub too, p-please.” he said through gritted teeth.

“Sure. 35 gold.” Devin said before he called out for his employee.

“Tamara! We have a customer! Get the hot tub filled right away!”

“Yes sir.” A young female voice sounded from a room behind the bar.

Jay paid 35 gold as a young woman came out from a door next to the bar.

“Room 3, but take him to the ruby-bath first” Devin said as he took the gold coins and went back to cleaning glasses.

“I wonder what they did to the new recruit to make him come back like this…” Devin thought as he shrugged, putting a clean glass down and grabbing another to polish. It was not the morning as Jay had thought – he had been unconscious all day; Devin merely assumed this was some sort of training.

“Old guild leader Sully must be experimenting this year,” he shrugged with a smile, “Oh well, not my problem.”