The dining room was lavish and extravagant as she'd expected from that of a royal family. The table was large, spanning over quite a distance, with three individuals seated towards the initial area, right below the main chair at the centre.
Rose sat there, unwilling to meet the two sharp gazes of her brothers; Thaddeus and Gabriel. Thaddeus was the oldest one, older than her own by almost two years, being 19 now, while Gabriel was her younger brother at the tender age of 13.
"So, I really am the "Princess", right?" she had a thought, and continued to ponder while they waited for their father to join the breakfast. "Only last night had I been returning home from work, and now, I've been dragged into this nonsensical situation. Well, nonsense or not, "I", a regular worker at Blackwood Ltd was suddenly taken away from my world! What is this situation, and this world isn't that much favourable to me either. Tsk!" clicking her tongue, all she could do was senselessly complain on and on about her misfortune.
However, by this time, she had grown attuned to her "misfortune." She had expended the former witching hour to craft and articulate an insidious plan for her wretched future here in this doomed world. Why wretched?
For one, she began recounting the number of calamities that befell the world; "A ton of cultists wanting to revive their old and dead Gods, a few outer space invasions, and maybe a few more other side quests that left the Main Character – Archibald traumatized."
And two: from the time and her age, she'd determined her time of reincarnation was far past the aboriginal outset mark, a point before she could put her experience and knowledge to use; a point where her future knowledge would not have much of an impact at.
"To be honest with myself, the changes that'd happened to me after my reincarnation is what bugs me, I mean, what happened to my "golden" hair?" She inspected her own bundle of what was "Golden" and luscious last night, now reduced to a mere onyx. "And with the odd setting where hair colour decides everything, I'm practically put at a disadvantageous situation."
At that time, a powerful and strong aura entered the room. Rose quickly shifted her head over to the figure that'd just breeched in — the tall man with golden hair and the sharp moustache caught her eyes for a different reason — he was extremely handsome... he was also her father.
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"Since I've been dumped back to my previous life, might as well try to work and get some money before I get dragged through the mud," thought Finn while he made his way through the dense grassy lands. "Maybe this was a second chance given to me by someone after witnessing my pathetic life. But couldn't they have done it differently? Every moment is reminiscent to moments that never occurred in my life yet, and they keep hurting my head when I try recall something specific."
Finn continued to make his way over to the edge of the city. On the far edge right beside the timberland stood a line cabin. It wasn't too large nor was it fancy, but it stood there as if it'd claimed it's place.
"That's the spot, huh? I never knew there was a lumberjack all the way out here?" Finn murmured. "But, this place is so abundant in mana, I can feel it. No, it's way too rich in mana. Even though I only awakened recently, with the core I'd formed last night —" he felt his thoughts sour at his own internal mention of the "core" he'd formed.
Last night...
"No wonder I couldn't sense the mana around me," Finn placed a hand over his stomach and held a sad expression. He was disheartened at the collection of reminisce he experienced, and to top it off, he found an empty
Sitting down outside his simple shack, and letting the cold breath of night rinse his weary mind, he asked himself, "Do I have to build all of that back up again? No! If anything, I should be able to reach that stage far easier this time!" He said tenaciously, preparing for the troubles ahead, but at the same time fixing the troubles he'd been facing as of this instance. "I'll form a core, one better than anything I had formed "last time"!"
After he'd placed himself in a perfect meditative posture, he took a number of deep breaths to collect and gather mana from his surroundings. Although the area where he resided in had not been that abundant in mana, he could still take in as much of it with short and fast breaths, filling up his vessel with it — with the primal force called mana that came along with "The Greatest Catastrophe" ever known to mankind:
Only after he'd reached the amount of mana required did he move on to the second process, and the first challenge for an awakener: [Core Formation]. After this, they had to firmly imprint the pathway to ascension, the means, which were divided into three as of now: Mage, Knight, and Manakai.
Having been a knight; a martial artist on his past life, he'd decided not to change his origins and stick with what he had knowledge in.
With the accumulated mana, he formed a [Conflux] on his lower Dan-Tian. Once the mana had all gathered here, they naturally moved without much of his thought. It was as if they had a single goal, and that was to amalgamate and form something The body was lacking, a conduit for mana. Although mana moved and pulsed through the blood and veins, they had to be guided manually. But mana had a natural property to accumulate itself whenever it was absorbed into a physical body. The reason for such behaviour of mana remained unknown.
He slowly recalled pieces of his memories, and began utilising the blessings of his regression. It was still unknown if it was actually a blessing, it a damnation in disguise, and with that thought, he pondered while concentrating, "To form a perfect core, the prescribed models require the host, an awakener to manipulate the mana themselves, however, when we do hold those reins, the mana shall find it's own pathways, and form the core for me without my help, and thus, through this unconventional method, I am able to form a type of perfect core."
Back to the present, Finn grumbled in discontent like an old man, "And that's how I formed my perfect core, and lost the special technique my grandfather handed over to me. I was supposed to use that, but I just had to forget that despite having awakened memories from another life."
His grandfather had given him a specific piece of paper which contained the flow of mana he had to execute to form the core of his family, the Tenebrions. Despite not being a noble family, his grandfather claims it to have been passed down through Finn's family for almost seven generations.
Lost in thought, he had not even realised he was standing at the doorsteps of the small cabin. For almost ten seconds had Finn stood there fixed. Only after another ten seconds had he noticed the sound of sequential thuds of metal against the bark of wood. Each thud and pound was analogous to a nectarous concord.
Finn soon walked towards the source of this beautiful melody and found a man with average height, and a stocky build bring down the tomahawk bewitchingly. Having been a martial artist of the [Six-Star] calibre, he could feel the lumberjack's movements were far from ordinary, in fact, they were trained and moved with precision, and the proof? The capacious tunefulness.
Snapping him out of his mesmerized daze was the man's voice, "Hey, looking for something, kid?" The voice was smoother, and sweeter than he'd expected from the rough figure.
{Never judge a man by the way he appears to be, for the ugly and shamed ones tend to be more true to their word.}
Except for the fact that the man was extremely handsome and charming in a way with his sharp moustache, and the short unkempt hair.
"I was looking for a job, and the Mister at the "Iron Heart" pointed to here." Finn answered him, and took out a piece of paper, handing it over to the man. "He told me that you were looking for someone to deliver firewood to? Is the spot perhaps open, and what would the pay per hour be?" Finn flat-out started enquiring about the work details, but above all, he wanted to know what the pay would be, after all, he needed ryū and he needed it fast.
"Oh, yes!" the man answered joyfully, and continued to explain, "I don't pay much, just 100 ryū per each delivery, and after the job has been completed, I'll pay you another 400 ryū. Since there are seventeen houses to deliver too, you shall receive 1,700 ryū and that brings us to a total of 2,100, right?"
"Ahh! Yes, Sir!" Finn was still shocked at having heard of the wage he'd receive. If he had indeed searched for different minimum wage works, the best he could earn in a single day would be 1,000 or even less, yet here this man claimed to give him 2,100 ryū? Impossible! "There must a lot to deliver, and the delivery must be difficult. That must be why the charges are so high, still, I must do this if I need the ryū for a talent assessment," he estimated internally.
"Here you go," the brown haired man dropped a large black onto Finn's palms. "Its a space ring, so just think of the wood, and you'll be able to pull it out. The address for the deliveries are also in it." Having said this, he turned and left Finn standing there, even more shook than before.
"Huh?!"
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