---
Quest completed.
Quest: Explore every place you can go to in the magic school
Quest Reward: 5 EXP
---
Name: Arlo Klser
Level: 3rd-Level Mage Apprentice
Abilities: Fireball (Medium), Fire Wall (Medium)
EXP: 45/100
---
Arlo felt relieved as he reached his house and closed the door behind him.
While touring the school, he had tried to move without thinking and without looking at the people around him so he wouldn't get a new quest.
He didn't know if the content of the quests depended on what he saw or thought, but the second quest had appeared right after he thought everyone was handsome. Because of this, Arlo decided to be cautious.
Of course, getting quests and earning EXP was important, but since he didn't know this place or its people very well yet, one wrong move could get him beaten up or lead to much worse consequences.
Arlo sat on his bed and sank into his thoughts.
The long walk had helped him gather his thoughts a little.
Although he claimed to have adapted quickly, it was inevitable that he felt some anxiety at first, but now he was relieved and had accepted this new world.
'Now what I need to do is complete as many quests as possible. According to this body's memories, even though my talent is high compared to ordinary people, it's only considered average within the magic school.'
Fortunately, his talent wasn't terrible either. In his previous life, Arlo had read stories where the main character's talent was trash, they were about to be expelled, or they were constantly bullied. His current situation was much better than those.
Finally, Arlo decided to go with the flow and got into bed. Even though the hour wasn't too late, what he had experienced today had drained him mentally.
---
DING
---
"What the hell is going on?"
Arlo jumped up, startled by the echoing sound in his brain, and looked at the screen in front of him in surprise.
---
Quest defined.
Quest Description: Getting up early is important on the path to success. How can you surpass your peers if you sleep while everyone else is working?
Quest: Disturb 10 people who are training and prevent their training.
Quest Reward: 50 EXP
Failure Penalty: Level -1
---
'...'
Arlo slowly sat up in his bed, cursing the system internally. If he remembered correctly, there was no sound when the quest came yesterday.
"Great, now I have a special morning alarm service."
And what kind of quest was this? Shouldn't it normally encourage him to work harder than others so he could surpass them?
Why was his system so intent on making others stumble?
Moreover, this quest gave almost twice the EXP of yesterday's "slapping the 2-meter man" quest.
He guessed that meant it was twice as difficult. After all, if you forcibly stopped someone's training, getting beaten up was a natural consequence. And he had to do it to 10 people, not just one.
Arlo sighed, got out of bed, and got ready. Although the quest was difficult, he understood from this system that he didn't have to carry out the quests directly. As long as he interfered with the other students' training, the how didn't matter to the system.
And for this quest, the best place was, of course, the training center.
…
The training center was a place where everyone could use their abilities freely. Although it looked like a huge open square from the outside, it had many rooms separated by invisible walls. This ensured that even if someone misused their abilities, they wouldn't harm others.
Arlo watched the students inside as he arrived at the training center. They were all attacking the fighting dummies in front of them with various abilities, trying to improve themselves.
Arlo could actually go one by one and ask the students questions, interrupting their training, but this would take too long, and the person could resume their training after answering the questions. This didn't quite fit the quest's condition of preventing their training.
So, Arlo decided to take a different approach.
Leaving the training center, he went to a deserted area and started doing squats.
Although this movement seemed meaningless to an outsider, Arlo continued and only stopped when he was breathless and sweating.
Then, pulling a newly found hood over his head, he ran to the training center and started shouting, panting and covered in sweat.
"Brothers, help! A crowded foreign school delegation is beating up our school's students in the city market!"
This shout echoed in the training area, and suddenly, all heads turned to him. Fortunately, his hood covered his face, but the red, sweaty face visible under the hood and his heavy breathing gave the impression that he had run the entire way.
"WHAT! They're attacking our school?"
"It must be the Tolkar School. They're always looking for trouble with us."
"Let's go, quickly! Let's show them what it means to attack our students in our territory."
Suddenly, everyone in the training center sprang into action. One person ran away, and everyone followed suit. The packed training center quickly emptied out, and no one noticed that the boy who first gave the news wasn't following them.
"Hah, no matter which world or what facial features they have, teenagers are still the same."
---
Quest Completed.
Quest: Disturb 10 people who are training and prevent their training.
Quest Reward: 50 EXP
---
Name: Arlo Klser
Level: 3rd-Level Mage Apprentice
Abilities: Fireball (Medium), Fire Wall (Medium)
EXP: 95/100
---
Superior Achievement detected.
Bonus Reward: High Mastery Ability Card (Apprentice Tier)
---
Arlo couldn't help but be surprised when he looked at the extra reward. Could he get an extra reward if he exceeded the quest's nature?
Moreover, this was the first time he had received a reward other than EXP.
---
Inventory opened.
---
Another notification appeared, and Arlo was delighted. The Inventory was one of the essential core abilities in both games and stories. While there were devices in this world that
could open a dimension in space and fit large items into tiny pouches or rings, like in other stories, they were very expensive based on his memories.
As Arlo thought about how to open the inventory, a square window divided into a 10x10 grid suddenly appeared in front of him, and there was a small card in the first box.
---
High Mastery Ability Card (Apprentice Tier)
Description: Can directly raise a foundational Apprentice Tier ability to High Grade mastery.
---
A huge smile appeared on Arlo's face when he saw this description.
Abilities, as seen in Arlo's status information, were the skills a person used during combat. These abilities were categorized into Basic, Medium, High, and Master according to the mastery level of the skill. The more mastery a person gained in an ability, the more power and precision they could show in that ability.
Apprentice Tier indicated the ability's class. Although there were more valuable True Mage and Master Mage Tier abilities, these were things Arlo couldn't use even if he found them.
Arlo was about to use the card excitedly but stopped suddenly. The abilities he currently possessed were Starter Tier abilities, even at the very bottom of the Apprentice Tier, and he had already brought them to Medium mastery. Using this card on them would be nothing but a waste.
Arlo had previously seen, while checking the old body's memories, that he had the right to choose one ability. He had postponed this choice due to fatigue yesterday, and since he got a quest as soon as he woke up today, he had forgotten about it.
In Koltare Magic School, a person gained the right to acquire an ability every time they leveled up. The old Arlo hadn't used this right since he had just leveled up and wanted to raise his existing abilities to a higher level, but now was the perfect time.
Abilities were chosen from the Koltare Magic School's library, and the library contained Starter and Medium Tier Apprentice-level abilities. Abilities were also categorized as Starter, Medium, and High in this way. This was a classification based on the ability's power. The reason there were no High-Grade Apprentice abilities in the library was that they were rarely found.
Since the people who could create abilities were generally great geniuses, such people prioritized becoming a True Mage directly rather than striving to produce High-Grade abilities. For this reason, High-Grade Apprentice abilities were in the minority.
Even though the old Arlo could have taken a Medium-Tier Apprentice ability, he had preferred Starter-Tier fundamental abilities since he was new to being a mage. Many mages used these abilities to lay the foundations.
Arlo headed excitedly for the library, having already forgotten the students who had gone to the fight. At most, they would go there and come back without doing anything. After all, they couldn't fight the air, could they? Since the city market was just outside the school, it could be considered a mini-exercise for them.
As for the person who gave them false news?
If they found that man, Arlo wouldn't hesitate to give him a hit or two. After all, since he gave false news to so many people, he didn't seem like a good person.
Arlo arrived at the library, humming a song from his old world, and went straight to the Medium Tier ability section. When he got there, he noticed that the abilities were divided into multiple categories such as defense, attack, speed, and stealth.
Arlo currently had an attack and a defense ability. Even though they were Starter Tier, they were useful in combat since they were trained to Medium mastery.
Now, what he needed was speed skills. Besides this being his missing piece, he could feel that he would need it a lot due to the absurd system quests.
After going to the speed abilities section, what did he do? He immediately started examining the old, worn-out books.
Anyone who has read this type of story knows that in such places, there are abilities that have power far beyond their level but are not taken by anyone due to their complexity or being incomplete. If Arlo found one of them, it would be very easy for him to gain a huge advantage with the ability card.
After examining all the books, Arlo indeed found such books. Although they weren't as exaggerated as mentioned in the stories, the amount of dust accumulated on them showed that they were used less than the others.
Arlo found 5 such books and began to examine them, but he immediately eliminated 2. These two were incomplete techniques.
The ability card required Basic level knowledge to raise a technique to High Grade mastery, and Arlo, who hadn't used any abilities in his new life, wasn't sure he could train the incomplete techniques to Basic level.
There were 3 abilities left.
---
Long Run Ability
Description: The faster the person runs, the faster they become.
---
This ability actually looked like a good thing at first because the ability had no upper limit. That is, theoretically, if you could run forever, you could even reach the speed of light.
But why would you run that far?
If he wanted to go that distance, he could use a horse or another means of transportation.
You could say that this is a good ability for escaping opponents, but what's the point of having the ability to reach the speed of light if the opponent can catch you before you speed up?
In short, people didn't use this ability because it was useless, not because they couldn't learn it.
Skip.
---
Serpent Movement Ability
Description: Move like a snake to become unpredictable and evade attacks.
---
This movement ability was actually good and was a movement technique specialized for combat. Furthermore, the ability encompassed not only leg movement but also body movements. This could allow you to escape many attacks.
The probable reason why this ability wasn't taken much was its difficulty. After all, the human body wasn't as flexible as snakes.
Although this ability was good, it could only be used for combat, the exact opposite of the previous ability.
There was no point in wriggling like a snake to escape an opponent.
---
Line Movement Ability
Description: Allows you to move very quickly on a straight line.
---
Arlo's eyes lit up when he saw this ability. This was exactly the ability he was looking for.
This ability made it impossible to change direction while moving. If you wanted to go in another direction, you had to stop and turn towards that direction. Of course, if you were very fast on a straight line, you could use it in many places even with such a handicap.
The main problem was controlling the ability.
The ability gave you a great speed on a line, but if you couldn't control it, it would be no different than ramming your head into a house or a tree at full speed.
In other words, the ability was nothing but suicide for those who couldn't control it. But for Arlo, it was a perfect fit.
Mastery? He could do that with the system card.
Moreover, despite the difficulty of controlling it, it was very easy to reach the Basic level. After all, it was just accelerating in a straight line.
Did you stop 10 meters past where you wanted to?
No problem.
Since you managed to get there and stop somehow, it meant you learned the ability at the Basic level.
Arlo took the ability without hesitation, and the man who gave him the copy of the ability didn't say anything to warn him, unlike in other stories. It seemed he didn't even care which ability he chose.
So, stories aren't always true.
Arlo left with a big smile, thinking he was much safer now while doing the system quests.
"Did you hear that? Our magic school students fought with students from another school in the city market."
"Yes, I did. I heard dozens of people got into a fight. True Mage level mages had to intervene to break it up."
"They deserved it. They must be asking for a beating for causing trouble in our territory."
"I agree."
Arlo's big smile froze on his face, and he looked at the talking students in surprise.
'Weren't they fighting the air? Where the hell did they find so many opponents to fight?'
Arlo stood there for a while, stunned, then shrugged as if he were completely innocent.
'Fighting is a very bad thing. It's better for me, as a good boy, not to get involved.'
Then, he calmly headed home. But to an outsider, his steps looked a little like a run.