As soon as Adam was struck by thunder and fell, multiple system windows appeared all at once.
|| THE GOD OF JUSTICE IUDICIUM HAS SPENT 1,000,000 CAUSALITY ENERGY TO ERASE THE HOST FROM EXISTENCE. ||
|| DIRECT INTERVENTION FROM GOD IS UNACCEPTABLE, PENALTIES WILL BE DIMINISHED. ||
|| YOU HAVE ACQUIRED [MARK OF INJUSTICE] (EX) ALL STATS WILL BE FIXED AT 1ST TIER UNLESS THE MARK IS REMOVED. ||
|| [UNDERDOG] HAS BEEN ERASED FROM EXISTENCE.
[VETERAN'S ADVANTAGE] HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM EXISTENCE. ||
|| [MONARCHS AESTHETICA] IS DISGUSTED BY THE SITUATION, NO FURTHER PENALTIES CAN OCCUR. ||
None of the windows had any good news in them, a severe disadvantage in every aspect.
His best trait had been erased. He checked the store to see if he could buy it again, but it wasn't there. It was truly erased from existence.
None of the traits he had left provided any sort of combat advantage except for [SWORD ELDER].
Thanks to [CALCULATOR], the time period of all of these actions was less than half a second.
More system windows appeared.
||THE CAUSALITY ENERGY EXPENDED BY IUDICIUM HAS BEEN ABSORBED BY THE SYSTEM! THIS CAUSALITY ENERGY CANNOT BE USED BY THE HOST AND WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE FOR USE WHEN THAT BEING DECIDES SO. ||
|| IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REDUCE YOUR CHARISMA STAT. THE CHARISMA STAT IS UNAFFECTED BY THE MARK. ||
|| IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REDUCE YOUR MIND STAT. THE MIND STAT IS UNAFFECTED BY THE MARK. ||
|| HOST IS THE FIRST MORTAL TO SURVIVE MULTIPLE ATTACKS FROM A GOD! HOST HAS ACCOMPLISHED AN IMPOSSIBLE FEAT! 10,000 CE AWARDED. ||
|| SYSTEM TIP: HOST YOUR LUCK IS REALLY SOMETHING ISN'T IT? I FEEL BAD FOR YOU, SO I HAVE DECIDED TO GIVE YOU A BONUS REWARD!
|| THE ' GODS ARE ON MY *SS ' T-SHIRT HAS BEEN PLACED IN YOUR INVENTORY. ||
It was hard to tell whether Adam was angry at the actions of Iudicium or the mockery from the system, but one thing was certain: the nerves on his forehead were bulging as if they were about to tear through the skin and pop out.
Along with the booing from the audience, the way he was treated by Jake during their first encounter, and the curse on him from Kexin, the mortal form of the Goddess of Death.
There were a lot of reasons for him to get mad enough to shoot up the academy.
Sadly, that plan had to be shelved due to guns not existing in this world.
There has to be a way for him to release all of his anger; that's when he came up with the solution, taking an arm from anyone whom he doesn't plan on killing.
The reasoning behind such a drastic measure was simple.
Adam was constantly bothered and trifled with due to everyone around him underestimating him and thinking they could best him.
'The best way to make sure nobody f*cks with me is to make them fear for their life.'
Resolving himself to be as ruthless as possible in this life, Adam climbed out of the hole and back to the stage.
As he made his statement, he could see the looks of disdain, disgust, and anger from his peers.
It was obvious just by looking at them what they were thinking.
'Who does he think he is?'
They would look down on him even more now that they know he has been cursed by the gods.
Adam went back to his podium while Archmage Cain took the mic and said some closing statements.
" Hahaha, kids these days are so full of energy! But there is one thing I do want to say. Any one of our students is free to challenge the Pioneer during the school year to contest his position. If you are unable to beat him in a fight, you can always try more 'scholarly' methods to take the 1st rank.
With this, the entrance examination has finally come to an end! The top 40 students will be invited to a special celebratory gathering tomorrow night as a reward for their excellent performance in today's event.
Please make sure to dress appropriately for the occasion and be there on time! "
The Principal and the rest of the staff turned back and made their way out of the arena. The audience stuck around for a little while, delirious about all the events that had transpired during the day.
As the principal made his way towards the exit, he stopped beside Adam and said, " Come to my office, I will give you the key to your dorm room."
It was a very confusing statement. Especially since it came from the principal himself.
All of the students who had passed the examination were given their dorm room and keys by the staff as they made their way out from the faculty exit.
As Adam was about to start moving out, Kexin appeared in front of him with a smirk on her face.
It seemed like she was in a good mood for some reason.
"It seems that you're not an avatar of those gods. You're an interesting morta- person."
Adam always found it straining to look up to the faces of people who were taller than him.
Kexin stood in front of him with a wide stance and her hand folded on her chest; her stance and demeanor oozed pride. Pride in her existence as the goddess of death and pride in her human identity as the Princess of the dynasty.
Adam cared very little for this woman in front of him and all of the things she had started saying about how lucky Adam is that she doesn't consider him an enemy and that he should be glad that she is willing to speak to someone like him.
The only reason Adam still stood there in front of her as she went on and on about how sad Adam's current state is after being cursed by the gods, and how she is willing to help Adam overcome the curse with her help, and how he should be grateful for these blessings that she is bestowing on him by helping him.
In the middle of exhausting all of her dialogue options, her eyes flickered with a dark aura.
|| SUDDEN QUEST COMPLETED! ||
|| [MARK OF DEATH](S) HAS BEEN REMOVED. ||
The only reason Adam stood here in silence listening to this woman run her mouth all on her own without any input from his side for over 10 minutes was because he was waiting for the mission to complete.
This entire time, Adam hadn't said a single word back to Kexin, not that she minded the fact that the person she was talking to had said nothing over the past 10 minutes; she seemed to have thought that she had finally found a true ally in this world to fight with her against the gods.
As soon as Adam saw the system window, Adam walked past her without saying anything and out the exit.
After a lot of asking around the campus grounds, Adam finally made his way to the principal's office.
It had taken him over half an hour to reach this place because, for some odd reason, this campus was way larger than he remembered from his memories of the game version.
It seemed like the devs had added a lot of DLC.
After politely knocking on the door to the office, Adam goes in and witnesses a very strange sight.
The Principal was sitting in his chair with a white cat that was quite fat and fluffy sitting on top of his head.
As soon as Adam went in, Cain snapped his fingers, and the door locked behind him automatically.
It turned out that the door was a magical artifact with wireless activation, which Adam found to be fascinating.
Without any pleasantries exchanged between them, Cain signals to his cat.
"Maru Maru, check his scent."
The fat white cat, even with all its mass, jumped down onto the floor with agility and elegance. Adam had anticipated a *thump* on the floor when that cat jumped off her owner's head.
The cat then got its face extremely close to Adam's leg and gave it a good
*Sniff* *Sniff*
And then climbed on the table and jumped back onto its owner's head.
"Do I smell bad, principal?"
"Smell bad? No, in fact, Maru Maru tells me you actually smell really pleasant, it's a pretty divine smell if you ask me."
"But he hasn't made a single sound since I came into the room."
"It seems you don't realise it, Maru Maru is my summoned magical beast."
"The Great Archmage Cain summoned an overweight cat as his summoned beast?"
"First of all, he wasn't overweight when I summoned him. Second of all, this overweight cat would have turned you into nothing more than blood splattered on the wall if it smelled any demonic or dark mana on you."
"Is The Great Archmage accusing me of colluding with the demons or the darkmages?"
"The sarcasm isn't appreciated, nitwit of the Dacre family, but seeing your performance in the exam, it's only natural for anyone to wonder how the fat kid who couldn't even walk for too long without breathing from his mouth, somehow managed to sweep the floor with the most talented youth of our kingdom."
"Well, I'm not really fat anymore-"
Cain didn't wait for the kid in front of him to finish his sentence,
"Yes, I can see you're not fat anymore, and that's a nice tattoo around your neck. I have never seen a noble of our kingdom have tattoos. I thought it was something those barbaric druids of the south did."
Adam furrowed his brows at what he had just heard from Cain. He looked at his left side, where a mirror was situated what he saw shocked him.
There was a black, chain-like tattoo around his neck.
Cain continued, "That's the mark of a god's curse, you know? Gavin did say something about using mana burning on a kid who had just become an adult, but who would believe such an absurd story?"
"I don't see anything wrong with checking myself rather than believing that a fat kid somehow survived mana burning with his sanity intact."
Adam noticed something as he moved his vision from the mirror back to the principal. The principal's right eye had changed into an eye that didn't look human; his pupil was shaped like an hourglass. Adam couldn't recall anything from his memory about this setting.
"The most interesting thing to me out of all of this is the future. How would a kid with a curse from the gods and barely any mana inside him survive in an academy that will soon be besieged by dark mages, attacked by the demons, and even the students themselves are out to get this kid?"
It's like he was reciting the future of the academy and everything Adam would have to deal with here.
'Since when did Archnage Cain Iglesias gain prophetic abilities?'
There was nothing about this in the game or its story or the millions of pages of notes scattered all around the game world that Adam had read in his past life.
As if to validate Adam's thoughts, Cain continued.
"How much do you know about Time Magic?"
"The only form of Time Magic humans have is the [REVERSAL] spell, and we only use it on roads and magical artifacts to maintain structural integrity."
"Another form of practical usage that a kid like you wouldn't know off is that noble women of quite the elderly age have the archmages make high-tiered reversal scrolls for them just so that they feel a day younger, clinging to their fleeting youth."
"I just pity their husbands having to waste so much money on scrolls that serve no purpose just to fulfill the whims of their wives."
"Well, you can't really blame them, if their wife gets mad, she won't sleep with them, and you know how that ends."
"Right? Imagine marrying a woman and after having kids with you she never sleeps with you, must be a miserable existence."
All of a sudden, a plate and a coffee cup appeared in Adams hands, Adam felt an incredible strong urge from within him to drink that coffee in one go.
*Sluuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrp*
As soon as the coffee in the cup finished, the cup vanished, and the tone of the conversation changed from a lighthearted one to a more serious one.
"Adam, we have had this conversation many times, ofcourse, the topics of the conversation were sometimes different, sometimes the same, sometimes you wouldn't even let me say anything and just go on and on about things you need from me to help you."
Adam had an expression of disgust on his face as his body recoiled back upon the information he had just heard.
"Are you seriously trying to tell me that to achieve the whatever goal I have I kept on regressing over and over again just to defeat a single demon god, those childlike gods in the sky and a lich?"
"Hah, those aren't the only dangers that prey on this world but this is interesting, for the first time ever, you don't seem to remember your regressions."
Adam's expression changed from one of disgust to one of pure anger. He raised his voice.
"You're spewing dogsh*t."
With that, Adam banged his hands on the principal's desk it seemed all pretense of respect had been thrown out the window.
"Now that's some fruity language I have never heard you say before. Why is it so hard to believe what I just said?"
"It's hard to believe because that's not me! I'm not some f*cking loser who would keep on failing trying to achieve a singular goal and keep on regressing back to try again and fail again."
"Whatever I want to achieve I give it my all from the start, i don't care about anything else. If I give it my all and still lose i will contently accept my defeat. But, there has never been a time where I have lost to anything or anyone. I don't plan on letting it happen this time either."
"I will never do something as pathetic as regressing. Unlock the door, I need some fresh air."
That room had started to get suffocating for Adam, his eyes were great at discerning people and his eyes were telling him that Cain was telling the truth.
With a snap of his fingers, the archmage unlocked the door again and with another snap of his fingers a floating key appeared in front of Adam.
"Don't forget to take your dorm key before you leave."
Adam took the key and made haste to leave the room, as he opened the door the principal spoke again.
"Do you still wish to reach the stars someday?"
Adam turned his head with an annoyed expression in his face and said, "F*ck the stars, I have more important sh*t to take care of."
With those parting words, Adam shut the door with all his strength making a sound loud enough to echo in the hallway.
Cain was left alone in his office, it was midnight now, as always he had his trusty companion with him in this life as he did in his other lives, his cat Maru Maru.
"How are we feeling about him this time Maru Maru?"
The cat dived from the archmage's head onto the table and said,"Interesting, very interesting, his energy is very refreshing."
Cain smiled at the words of his companion, a book with a wooden cover and an hourglass carved into it appeared in his hands.
After flipping through more than a thousand pages, he finally reached and empty page and wrote,
'Regression No. 1111,
Different, very different.'