In the morning, John and Caleb were put into prison. He looked at the brown-haired youth that he wanted to choke but shook his head. He had found out the guy's name during their interrogation by General Knox.
When the brown-haired youth saw that John was looking at him, he started cursing at him, pointing out the crazy things he was doing at night. On the other hand, John was blaming him for screaming right away without bothering to look at the situation.
After thirty minutes of banter, they both heard laughter from the two guards outside. Then John looked out and said to the first guard, "Sir, it couldn't be fully blamed on us. It was actually General Knox who blasted the walls anyway and made things worse."
When the guards heard his words, they nodded in agreement. It was indeed General Knox who had made things worse when he released his aura, and then the subsequent auras followed.
Last night, both of them were working in the prison, and with all the commotion and the heavy auras they felt, they too couldn't help but panic. When everything settled, they sighed in relief, thinking it was all just a misunderstanding. The culprits were just these two. But they were mere guards who couldn't do anything nor complain to their superiors.
One of them shook his head and laughed again. "With all the commotion that happened last night, I think you were lucky enough not to be hanged in the district."
With a sigh, John sat down in a corner and tried to think. He felt the situation had escalated abnormally fast. John remembered what General Knox had said, that the enemies were coming within six months. He clicked his tongue. "Why does it seem like the enemies are just around the corner?"
John had a quick guess. "What if they are coming sooner?" Then he stopped. "No, no, no. It shouldn't be that bad, right?"
He paused for a minute, but with a grim look thought, "But what if?"
Without hesitation, John said in his mind, "System!"
Name: John
Level: 2 (Exp: 0/100)
Realm: Mortal
Strength: 0.6
Agility: 0.4
Constitution: 0.6
Spirit: 3.1
Free Attribute Points: 3
Skill Points: 1
"I am not sure where to put the free attribute points, but I believe I should at least make myself average."
John pressed the plus sign after Strength, then Agility, and finally Constitution.
Strength: 1.6
Agility: 1.4
Constitution: 1.6
Soon, he felt a cold energy spreading through his whole body. John couldn't help but grunt, but his pale complexion started to look healthier.
The moment he added the attribute points, he could hear his bones crackling, like they were rearranging themselves. The old feeling of fatigue and weakness started to dissipate. Instead, he felt energetic, like someone who had woken up from a deep sleep. Both his mind and body felt instantly refreshed.
John then looked at the 1 Skill Point. He checked his SKILL tab, but unfortunately, he didn't have any active skills yet. However, he saw that all his passive skills had a plus sign next to them, meaning they could be upgraded.
"The most valuable would be swordsmanship, but I'm not really in a hurry to level it up. The rest of the passive skill tree is for farming, and they wouldn't be very valuable to me right now."
Stopping his eagerness to spend his skill points, John closed the interface. He thought it was a shame he had wasted time and couldn't set up traps any longer.
…
At lunch, Captain Elias, who was managing the training guards, came to the prison and told the guards that they were cleared.
In front of the prison, John was smiling while Caleb had red eyes from crying loudly. Elias looked at the two and couldn't help but shake his head. It had only been two days, and they had already created such trouble.
After bringing them out, he roared at both of them, "You two! Move your asses back to the training field!"
"Yes, sir!" Caleb shouted, and soon started running back to the field.
John, on the other hand, stopped and asked with a smile, "Sir, can I still set up my rat trap back in our room?"
When Elias heard it, he smiled, slowly walked to his left, and found a wooden plank. He grabbed it tight and started whacking John.
…
John arrived at training with some bruises.
When he arrived, he noticed the glances of many people. He had become famous in the barracks, and many were curious about what the "Rat Killer" looked like—the one who had thrown the whole Fort into chaos.
Soon, he was assigned another sparring partner. Because his stats were now almost above an average human's and his Spirit attribute was higher, he was able to fight back against more proficient trainees.
His swordsmanship experience also started increasing faster, reaching 42/100. When he saw the experience bar, he couldn't help but feel eager to train. Other trainees and Captain Elias noticed John's spirit, and they couldn't help but nod in agreement.
When others found out that he was able to last longer and no longer got knocked out, they were surprised by his progress. This led Captain Elias to appreciate John's training speed and improvement.
Before night, John felt very depressed. He was eager to level up more. The feeling of leveling up was very addicting to him.
However, Captain Elias clearly told him that if such a thing occurred again, he would personally hang John without mercy.
Furthermore, John couldn't do anything secretly anytime soon because many were still paying attention to his actions, including his quartermates.
…
However, in John's heart, he couldn't help but feel curious. Although he couldn't set up his traps, he still had some thoughts about experimenting with his time magic.
John looked around and found a corner. Even if someone saw him, they would only think he was resting. He brought out three things from his pocket. First was a small raw egg that he had secretly stolen from the kitchen after dinner. Then, a small beetle and a corn seed.
Without wasting time, he cast Temporal Acceleration. The items were enveloped by his time magic, and seconds passed. The most prominent changes were in the beetle and the corn seed. The beetle started growing but within seconds ran away and left the magic sphere. The corn also started to grow, but when the top part passed the bubble, it stopped growing. Finally, the egg didn't change much but started to rot and turned to dust.
John noted the effects of his time magic.
As he thought, because the egg was unfertilized, it did not grow. His magic could not give life—only accelerate it. The beetle grew but stopped after leaving the time bubble. The corn, however, sprouted leaves.
He concluded that to accelerate something, it had to stay inside the bubble, but once it passed outside, the effect was canceled immediately. What he could do was increase the size of the bubble to maintain it, but that would increase the consumption of life energy.
After gaining some insights from his magic, he quickly removed everything and cleaned up his experiment. Just in case, he checked his experience bar, but the beetle did not give him any experience.