"Haah... haah..."
Sweat dripped from Ren's face as his wooden sword clashed against Ronan's.
Deciding to take a break, both of them dropped to the ground and Ronan immediately began to chug down a pot of water from his inventory.
Some people glanced his way before focusing back on their training.
But Ren wasn't actually exhausted. To be exact, it was the sunlight falling directly on the training hall that made him this sweaty.
'And this prevents me from acting exhausted.' It wasn't that his stamina stat was too high but the fact that his strength was so much more than the other stats that Ren had to control the force in his strikes to prevent showing off.
He knew better than anyone else to hide his secrets or else the world won't hesitate to use them against you. It had happened to him more than once in his life. Every single time he tried making friends with the other kids by trying to join in their conversation, he was laughed at, irrespective of whatever he said.
And here, everyone was a person who had survived and fought for their life. So just imagine what lengths some people could go to bring him down.
Shaking his head, Ren was about to stand up when something else caught his attention. Turning his head, he noticed a couple of people exiting from a pathway on the other side of the training hall.
The pathway was guarded by two guards who had thin armor upon their bodies that even covered their faces so it was impossible to determine the two guards' age or gender. But that wasn't the reason Ren had shifted his focus here.
It was because of the people who exited from the pathway. They all had unique designs and were wearing clean clothes with a symbol of two crossed swords on the upper left part of the hem.
They appeared slightly more refined than the rest of the people.
Ren looked around before walking towards a person resting beside him and asked in a low tone.
"Brother, who are they?" Ren forced his tone to be more polite.
The person, a short man in his late twenties glanced at Ren, then at the group behind him before finally settling his gaze on the people who were coming near them.
"They are the players, people who aren't from our world. And each one of them holds a special ability which makes them far better than us." The person shared the information in a low voice as murmurs increased between the people.
'So they get special treatment too?' Ren wondered as he looked at the people ahead of him but what he hadn't expected was for them to directly come towards him. He, just like the others, had assumed they were just passing by the training hall when one of the men separated from the group and stopped directly in front of him.
A slight unease passed through him as he looked at Ren's eyes but he hid it immediately.
The man had red hair and matching amber eyes which looked quite fierce.
"Follow me." Saying this, he resumed walking to the pathway he had come from and left the other players who continued walking without glancing back at him.
Ren got confused upon receiving no explanation but a direct command, and glancing around, he was even more stupefied to find everyone staring at them.
He turned around and signaled the group to wait for a while before following him.
The people beside him kept murmuring to themselves as Ren passed by them and even heard some of the conversations.
"Isn't that Kael? A mage with the ability to wield the fire element?"
"Yeah, it's basically apparent from his looks."
Ren looked up with a surprised gaze and even he had to agree that Kael's whole look screamed about his elemental affinity.
'Wait, fire?' Ren immediately commanded and summoned the status panel in front of his eyes. He wasn't worried as no one aside from the person themselves can view their status panels.
---
｢Name: Ren
Level: 21
Bloodline: Heir of Oblivion
Strength:50~>52
Agility:30~>31
Vitality:26~>27
Stamina:30~>31
Mana:40~>42 — [42/42]
Spirit Power:124
Skill: Oblivion Series, Oblivion Integration(0/1)｣
---
Focusing on the skill Oblivion Series, he willed and and another golden screen appeared above the present glowing screen.
---
" OBLIVION SERIES "
Type: Inherent Skill
Progression: Chapter 1
Ash Manipulation: Grants dominion over residual remains of destruction and allows manipulation of ash, smoke, and lingering cinders born from combustion.
---
'Yesss. Finally.' Ren almost screamed in joy as he re-read the information presented before his eyes.
He was always worried about the usage of this seemingly useless item, which had proved to be useful once but Ren didn't know any other way to use it in the city itself.
But with the emergence of Kael, who might be able to set houses on fire and burn the streets in destruction, everything changed.
With a suppressed smile, Ren kept following him as he started to get the gist of the situation.
'Are they taking me because I am one of the players?' And it wouldn't be wrong to say that he was a little curious about the other parts of the citadel.
As they exited the narrow pathway, Ren found himself in an enclosed chamber for the first time since he had arrived in the citadel.
The floor was the same but the training equipment? Far better. But above all of that, what attracted Ren's attention was the spar going on in the centre of this chamber.
Two people were fighting against each other but not in a traditional way. One of them looked normal and attacked with his bare hands but when his strike was going to land, the nails on his fingers suddenly turned an inch longer in an instant. It clashed against the shield of the person and in the next second, he was thrown out of the sparring area.
"Don't worry, you will soon join them," Kael said with a raised brow as he looked at Ren focusing on the spar.