Journey begins

The funeral ritual lasted for about four hours, the tradition of the soldiers required them to stand and watch their comrades burn until there was nothing left except ash.

There were just a few hours left before morning when the funeral finally concluded.

Everyone retired to their tents to rest and prepare for their journey towards the dark island.

King Julian instructed them to get as much rest as they could over the next four hours to mentally and physically prepare themselves for the arduous journey ahead.

Before leaving for his own tent, he did not forget to personally display his gratitude to Alister for his help.

"Without your help, more of my soldiers would've lost their lives to those abnormalities. Thank you, Alister."

Alister responded with a smile and nod, then shook his hand before both of them retired to their tents.

Reaching his tent, Alister summoned his character status to check his new stats.

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Name - Alister Ashworth

HP -97%

MP - N/A ( Unlock mana at Lvl 10 )

Level - 3 (183/330)

Legacy Order: 0

Title - N/A

Blessing - N/A

STATS

Strength - 25

Defense - 25

Agility - 27

Luck - 4

Unassigned points - 6

SKILLS

Swordmaster Lv 1

INVENTORY

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Alister studied his character status calmly, and a frown quickly appeared on his face.

"Strength, defense, and agility went up by 15 points after going up three levels, this means I gain 5 points automatically for each of those stats after each level up. But luck only rose by one point? Why?"

First, his luck stats came out really low, and now even after leveling up thrice, they only went up by a single point compared to the other stats.

"I have unassigned points, I should improve my luck with the ones I have now."

Saying this, he clicked on the unassigned points, and (+) symbols immediately appeared behind each stat, of course, except luck.

"Fuck! I can't even increase my luck with unassigned points."

Alister did not know how to feel at this moment, knowing he had shitty luck with a slow improvement rate and his inability to increase it using unassigned points.

He was so confused he had to make an inquiry to the system.

[Strength, Defense, and Agility are primary stats, they gain 5 points each after every level up and can be upgraded using your unassigned stat points. Luck, however, is a secondary stat with a slower increase rate of 1 point per 2 level ups.]

The answer he got only made everything worse.

"One point after two level ups is not growth at all!"

Alister lamented, he asked the system if there was any way he could improve his luck.

[All stats, including luck, can be increased permanently with special skills, blessings, or titles.]

Seeing the system response, Alister finally let out a long sigh and closed his character status.

He went back to the desk to resume studying the scroll he was about to read before chaos broke loose.

Most of the information about this scroll contained the journey so far, the route they had taken, the dangers they faced on the way, how many soldiers were killed, and other minor details.

Alister spent about five more minutes reading before retiring to bed to rest.

WHISTLE!

A loud, estranged whistling sound vibrated across the encampment as morning finally arrived.

Alister was woken up by the strange whistling sound that sounded like nothing he had ever heard before.

"What the heck was that?"

Alister wiped the sweat that had gathered on his forehead with his hand as he rose up from the bed, feeling a little worn out. Apparently, four hours of sleep wasn't able to wash away the stress from last night's battle.

Alister walked lazily down to the desk, he took the scrolls and stored them inside his inventory before strolling out of the tent.

He was immediately greeted with the calm and radiant glow of the morning sun hanging on the peaceful, bright morning sky, a deep contrast to the chaotic, dark night that had just ended.

The soldiers were already awakened, some could be seen taking down the tents, while others gathered dried wood and set up fire to prepare breakfast.

"Good morning, hero."

"How did you sleep, hero?"

"Did you have enough rest?"

They all turned their heads in his direction, waved, and greeted him with bright smiles. From their faces, one could easily tell how happy they were to be able to see a new morning like this.

Alister waved back at them while his eyes observed his surroundings, he noticed several horses and carriages stationed at the back of the encampment that he had missed last night due to darkness.

He also noticed something really strange.

'There are no corrupted human corpses?'

Alister was confused.

Except the footprints and dents on the encampment ground, nothing else could be seen of the battle that took place last night.

"Excuse me, what happened to all the corrupted human corpses from last night?"

Alister called one of the soldiers and asked curiously.

The soldier understood his curiosity, he smiled and explained gently.

"Corrupted humans are creatures of the night. They cannot endure natural light, sunlight, or any form of divine light that sears their flesh and erases them from existence."

Thanks to this explanation, Alister was finally able to understand the reason behind most of the reports he left last night.

It only mentioned that corrupted humans only attacked at night and that those who were killed by the corrupted humans would end up becoming one after twenty-four hours. There was no mention of their inability to endure sunlight.

Unfortunately, corrupted humans were not the only danger mentioned in the reports, there were also cases of wild beast attacking and bandits trying to kidnap the king and steal their resources.

After receiving the explanation, he thanked the soldier and began strolling towards the royal tent. He needed to discuss more about today's journey with King Julian.

"Welcome, His Majesty is already awaiting your visit."

The soldier guarding the entrance of the royal tent greeted and escorted him inside.

Inside, King Julian, Osborne, and one other person, a huge middle-aged soldier wearing a different kind of armor from the other soldiers, could be seen discussing amongst themselves as they traced lines on a map on the table in their middle.

Alister was welcomed warmly by the three.

"I am Captain Theobald, I'm in charge of the men outside."

The new guy introduced himself and shook hands with Alister.

"Nice," Alister replied plainly, communication wasn't actually his forte.

Theobald smiled and led him to the map and began explaining to him.

"There are five significant landmarks from Muzez Kingdom to the dark island, we've successfully crossed the first two landmarks and we're about to complete the third landmark which is this Darkwood forest we're currently dwelling at. Once we're done with this landmark, we would reach the feared bridge of the south."

Theobald went on for minutes explaining the map, Osborne and Julian also chimed in often to make certain points clearer.

Thanks to his little geographical knowledge from earth, understanding the map reading wasn't that difficult.

In less than an hour, they were done discussing.

Around the same time, breakfast was served.

Alister ate with the three, the meal comprised of roasted meat and vegetables soups. Although they lacked certain ingredients, it was still pretty delicious and enjoyable considering it was prepared in the middle of nowhere.

Breakfast ended.

Everyone made their last preparation to resume their journey.

The tent was taken down and folded.

Osborne brought out a small brown leather pouch and stored the entire tent in it, shocking Alister.

He did not need an explanation to understand that the bag was similar to storage artifacts in novels.

A few minutes passed and the journey began!