Thank you all for voting in the latest poll. I am glad to announce that the winner of the romantic sweepstake is (Insert drum roll) Velvet. Get ready for some cute bun fluff once we get to Beacon, which coincidentally is where we are going this chapter.
I dodge out of the way of a rampaging elder buck's, the actual boss of the elk dungeon, charge. The buck doesn't get very much farther as it hits Jaunes shield, stopping it in its tracks. Jaune lifts his golden sword, renamed Odin's sorrow, and fells the old beast. That's the third one today.
Our routine for the last week and a half is training, training, and training, sometimes apart, but mostly together, because misery always loves company. That's not to imply that the training hasn't been profitable, and I don't mean just financially. We both went up quite a bit in levels, skills, and competence. I am now level eighteen while Jaune is now twenty. Each day we pushed ourselves to the limits. While being smart about our training.
I came up with some multitasking that helped me increase my most important stats, namely the metal stats. Basically, it all revolved around that water bottle the Abysse gave me, turns out it's indestructible. I would just do random stuff while also doing my magic on the water inside. I would read while spinning the water around for water control and int, boil, and freeze it repeatedly while doing my shift, for Charm and fire/ice mastery. Doing these exercises I've managed to get my water control skill ten, ice to seven, and fire to twelve.
I also came up with a few games to make training easier. My favorite of these games is Fucking with Don. This is how I increase my thief skills, basically, Don has to come down the street every day to get missions from the hunter office down the street, so my goal is to ruin his day in the most creative ways I can think of with just my golems and my thief skills. Just yesterday, I made him drop his pants at the exact same time his mother was passing by, he was wearing ladies underwear that I snuck onto him, though it wasn't Yang's for obvious reasons. These brought my thief skills to an even ten.
Oh, that reminds me I've been making as many as many golems as I could, enough for twenty dust golems, three clay golems, and my new golem, water. These little beauties are great for trapping. They act as tiny blobs, and the higher the level the more water I can use to make them. They can't do much besides just roll around, be sticky, or be bouncy, Think of them like the grapes from that purple kid on My Hero Academia, I could look up his name but I hate him so I won't. This all got me to level thirty in golem creation.
Now that's not to say I've been ignoring my less used skills, no way. I ordered some vials of-of the online mall and started mixing up some poisons, most of which are just mixture of household chemicals, but it works, my poison control is a respectable ten because of it. Also, I do just some simple stuff that helps, like using torchlight to read or mana enhancement for cooking.
My ruminations on the last week were interrupted by a buck that was charging at me, I was just going to freeze, but before I could, its charge was halted and it was pulled back by an invisible force right onto Jaune's waiting sword. That, of course, was the biggest change of the week, Odin hadn't been quiet, he had been helping us out with our training and actually teaching us a few things. He gave me a few tips to make my elemental magic more effective, but couldn't do much for me really because the elemental magic never clicked with him really, so he spent most of his time helping Jaune. Odin began teaching him his own magic style, gravity. The specific sub skills were still low but his overall gravity mastery was progressing nicely, he got a bunch of stuff like gravity wells, attracting or repelling things from himself, a glyph that when its first stepped on reverses your gravity upwards so you get flung upwards at high velocity, and when stepped on the second time it quintuples gravity in that specific spot so you get crushed, even just encoring him in place, but his favorite is called Mark of Attraction, basically it allows him to mark up to five things of a certain weight or size, and then attract them to a purple ball of energy he conjours that he can to whatever he wants with, so basically he throws the ball and the objects fallows. Five enemies flung off a cliff, five cars being flung into an enemy, five pies being flung right at me(yes, he did do it), but his preferred method of using it, is marking himself and flying with it, this I hope is what he'll use for his landing strategy.
Odin's gotten out of his angst and has been getting a bit more social, he's actually starting to talk to us outside of training and I even managed to get him to tell me some stories that aren't about his mistakes. He's not the Jolly Green Giant, but he's better.
I see another Elderbuck charging at me, but this time I just smirk and slash him with a water tentacle, it stumbles and I capitalize on it, I throw a vial of weak acid at the old beast. It impacts and flails now blind. It jerks and flails but I don't care I concentrate on the water around me and prepare for an ice spike but before I launch the attack, I stop and get a terrible idea, I focus on the wound for the tentacle and send my mana towards it just like I would a stream or sink, I feel the familiar connection only its different but not unwieldy, I will the crimson liquid to push outwards, and just like that it obeys. IT tears its way out in a gory display, what's left afterwards is just a dried husk with no liquid to be found, that liquid of course it floating besides me in a cloud of scarlet, on a whim a put it into my inventory for safe keeping. I call upon my golem creation skill, which at level level twenty five I gained the mutation ability to add additional mana into to auto level the created golem from the start. A great thing about this skill is that ever golem has its own sub-skill, so they all get their own mutation skill. I've only gotten the mutation skill for the dust golems, but it's a good one, It gives each individual dust golem its own mini-inventory inside of each golem. Before, the golems could carry stuff inside themselves but it had to be small and lightweight to fit inside, but now as long as it isn't nailed down it can be put inside one of them. I used the skill on the dried husk and just as I thought I was able to be made into two dust golems.
Satisfied with the results, I sent Jaune a party chat saying that I wanted to end it for the day. He agreed and we went on our own for the day, tomorrow was the day we went to Beacon and we both wanted to be well rested. With nothing bearing down on me I look at the screens that I've accumulated.
[Water control leveled up once to lvl 11]
[poison control has leveled up to level 7]
[Dust Golem sub-skill has leveled up to 26]
[New water sub-skill; Blood control]
[Blood control; lvl 2; Blood control otherwise known as hemomancy is the art of calling upon the liquid of life to do your bidding. Historically it has been associated with necromancy and the occult, this branch of magic holds no affiliation with any light or dark houses but has no problem being used for either. Masters of this skill can stop a creature in its tracks without killing it, they can extract the vitality from the blood to sustain themselves or others, they can even control the clotting of blood to either thicken or thin blood while still inside the body.]
[+1 int]
[Markus U. Forman]
[str 16]
[vit 20]
[dex 24]
[int 24]
[wis 24]
[luc 23]
[chm 24]
I let a confident smirk cross my face, we started out weak and useless and we might even still be on the weaker side, but we still improved and we will keep improving, we conquered a giant hell buck, we survived a skeletal jumping bean that fart poisonous as, we can do this.
"We are ready," I say to no one.
I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to face the world. I stuffed all my equipment and paintings into my inventory. I said goodbye to Tucson and the clay golem I left to do my job and hold down the fort, along with five dust golems for Fucking with Don, and a package hidden inside the golem. The golem has instruction to give the package to Tucson a week before Emerald and Mercury are set to come. Inside is a letter explaining to Tucson who they are and what they are coming to do and how I know all of his stuff, a clay golem set to look like Tucson, and an untraceable Ticket to Menagerie.
Concerning how I know Menagerie exists, well I read about it during my research about this world. I know how after the Faunas wars it was given to the Faunus as kind of a backhanded gift, that is until the Belladonna family came to power and terraformed allot of the island and found a large supply of iron ore and a natural cactus that can be used as medicine and food. Then they became one of the largest food suppliers to the kingdoms, and yet they still are hampered from reaping the full benefit of these titles by unfair trade contracts and racists competitors like the Schnee's' causing unfortunate accidents along their trade routes. Learning these and finding the hypocrite got me some int and wis when I first learned this stuff.
Tucson was initially hesitant about letting a clay me take over my job, that is until I offered to let him dock my pay while away, he didn't know about the tips that I got. Plus it was nice helping out Tucson. He's a nice guy and when his mind isn't all mucked up philosophical bullshit, he's funny and kind to everyone, hell he quite the flirt with the ladies when he's actually relaxed. But enough of that I had a blond knight to meet. We meet up about five blocks from the airship platform. I started a little small talk to try to alleviate some of the nervousness in my gut.
"Soooo, any one special you leaving behind"
"Yeah, my family. Oh you should have seen my two youngest sisters trying to stop from leaving by hiding all my underpants"
"That's adorable but I mean, you know, a certain special lady friend," His face immediately went redder than Ruby's cloak and he started to sputter out.
"Wha. I men, a, a, no," He said with a defeated tone. He started sulking and I started to feel a bit guilty so I said.
"Hey don't worry I haven't even had a girlfriend yet, you know with the hole living in a hospital for the majority of my life, candy stripers are surprisingly not very good flirting targets"
"Hey hey, that is something, hell maybe we both might find a girlfriend here."
"That would be nice, my friend, it would."
Our conversation was cut off by the large metal bird land and signaling that we could get on. It was a large open space with seat lings along the walls and a large window on one side and a tv projector on the other, the channel was currently on the news. The color scheme was a pale green and tan. I probably shouldn't mention green though because once the ship began to fly, Juane became too sic to speak to and leaving me without an excuse not to socialize.
Instead of trying to be social, I instead stated observing people in the cabin. Blake, who was hiding in a dark corner reading, and Yang who was choking her sister with a hug, were the same level. Ruby was a respectable 29. Cardin, who was bragging to some second-year girls who were obviously not impressed, was 30. Weiss was standing as far away from the crowd as she could with a sneer on her face doing quite a good job at keeping them away, she was 27. Nora was being the social equivalent of a golden retriever, saying hi to everyone and then moving on to the next person that catches her attention, she along with Ren, who was following her around exasperated, was both 32. Cardin's other future teammates were all twenty-five.
The bunny girl named Velvet was the highest levels at 37. She was awkwardly shuffling around hoping no one would mess with her, she obviously didn't want to be in the crowd and thus she was trying to find the refuge of a seat. Fortunately for her Jaune had just begun his made dash for the trash can, which unfortunately stopped short at Yang's shoes, but did open up his seat for Velvet which means she, of course, sat next to me. I didn't want to seem rude so I decided to make small talk.
"Um, Hi, what's your name, I'm Mark."
"Oh, um I am uh Velvet," She said surprised and then shyly, her ears were drooping and twitching. The silence that followed was awkward, but I didn't know when to quit so I pressed on.
"So, what brings you to Beacon, besides this airship that is," I tried that bad joke but I think it just intimidated her.
"Ow, well I always wanted to be one ever since I was small, I'm in my second year here and I think it's the best hunter school"
"Really, wears your team they didn't ditch you did they."
"NO no I just kinda woke up late," she sputtered out with an immersed chuckle.
"It's nice to meet you, I came here with my friend Jaune he should be here in a sec," I was about to finish but I heard a high pitched scream and saw Jaune hanging by his shirt, held up by Yang. She had puke on her shoes and her eyes were red, Ruby was trying to calm her down but she fell on deaf ears.
"YOU ASS, these shoes were new."
"I I I'm sorry I didn't mean to."
Seeing that Jaune was about to be pounded to paste I decide to intervene, first with some hidden dust golems to rob her blind, she was threatening a guy who just threw up on her shoes so I didn't see any problem with it, plus I was still salty about that bar slam.
"Whoa, whoa there, everyone chills out, miss it was obviously an accident and I am sure that my friend there would be happy to pay for a new pair, so let's save the violence for the grim ok. We're all here to fight them not each other, wouldn't want to burn any bridges this early, I mean you two might be on the same team," I said trying to calm down the voluptuous boxer.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes when she opened them they were back to lilac, she put Jaune down and spoke,"He's right, I'm sorry, look I overreacted let's just put this behind us, don't even worry about the shoes. I'm Yang and this is my baby sis Ruby."
We introduced ourselves and made awkward chitchat for a bit, Jaune and Ruby seemed to hit it off though., and by the time we were ready to go back to Velvet the ship landed Jaune burst out first and started kissing the ground thanking every deity he knew for getting off the ship. I awkwardly stood by him and waited for him to stop.
Once we did we were walking down the path hoping to find the crowd we had lost, on our way we saw the beginning of the confrontation between Weiss and Ruby. Two weeks ago Jaune would have been too cowardly to intervene until it was over. Now with twenty levels on his belt and a friend behind him, along with knowing the girl he hardened his face and marched over, with me in toe. We got there just to see Weiss start to wave her dust vials in Ruby's face. Ruby was obviously uncomfortable about the whole thing and wanted out. That is where we came in, Jaune got between her and Weiss, while I sent out my duties to rob the girl of everything on her. I would have gone for the dust but that would be too obvious. I simply walked up beside Jaune while the little guys did their job. Jaune launched into his white knight routine.
"Hey, Calm down it was just an accident, she didn't mean to do and she already apologized."
"DON'T YOU START WITH THAT KUMBIA RUBBISH SHE TACKLED INTO MY lUGGAGE AND ALMOST RuinED, ALMOST RUINED A LARGE AMOUNT OF GRADE A DUST MINED FROM THE SCHNEE QUARRY, YOU DOLT" she shouted while waving a red dust vile in our faces. Knowing where this was going I decided to step in before any … let's call them accidents happen.
"Hey maybe, you should st."
"BOOM"
What I was about to say before being consumed by the rather rude combustion of elemental qualities, was that she should have stopped waving it around before something set the dust off. But I never got to finish my sentence due to two rather unfortunate factors. One, due to my fire affinity my body temperature and breath are several degrees higher than normal. Two, due to me mixing some poisons this morning involving my poison breath, I had chemical residue on my breathe. These two factors along with the particulate dust matter in the general vicinity triggered a rather spectacular display that would become one of Ports many stories in the future, although in his story I was a two-story Beowulf that triggered the explosion because Port had bravely thrown a tanker of experimental dust fuel in its gaping maw to save a busload of visiting orphans and nuns.
But the fact that the side of effects of two skills could come together to make a new resultant made me wonder if I could combine skills in a beneficial way. Maybe, using GEG and swing to make a wrecking ball or maybe igniting my poison breathe with fire, well that might not be the best idea because the gas would always lead the explosion back to me. Well, that's as far as my thought processes went before I blacked out, pity too because I wanted to chew out Weiss, but alas.
The weird thing about gamer's body is that if you get knocked out you can still remain mentally conscious even if your body is knocked out, I would just go to sleep but I had to be at orientation in two hours and I can't change how long I sleep for, so I had an opportunity to review the screens that had popped up during the last couple of minutes, good thing to because the dust golems managed to escape the explosion by jumping into my inventory.
[+1 int for working out how something happened in an accurate and scientific way.]
[+1 vit and Phy's resistance for tanking a very damaging attack.]
[+1 luck for surviving a near-fatal attack] Dammit Weiss.
[New item; Panties of the sunny boxer. A pair of women's panties. These panties have a white and yellow striped pattern design with a decal of a sun on the butt with a pair of sunglasses, under said decal is the saying 'It's always better sunnyside up' in black cursive. Grants +5 to the cooking and pyromancy spells when worn by women, +15 if the wearer has had eggs in the last twenty four hours.]
[New item; Panties of the frosted flower(goddammit) THese panties are completely black lace with the exception of a patch of white lace in the shape of the symbol of the owner, namely Weiss Schnee, on the front. Grants +20 to the seduction skill if the wearer is female]
GOD DAMMIT IF I KEEP GETTING PANTIES THE THE AUDIENCE WILL THINK I'M A PERV FUCK YOU AUTHOR.
[+1500 Lein]
My ruminations on how to kill the author, were interpreted by the distinct sounds of conversation and the dragging sound of rubber on concrete. Ignoring the massive headache and burning smell, I tore my eyelids from their perfectly comfortable position just to be assaulted by a light so bright that I would have to describe it as the spontaneous ejaculation of a thousand angles. I shut my eyeballs as fast as I opened them and listened to my compatriates discussion.
"I'm just saying that motion sickness is a much bigger problem than most people let on."
"I'm sorry, its just that vomit boy was the first thing to come to mind."
"Yay well how would like it I called you little red."
"I would impale you with my little baby here."
"Your baby?"
"Crescent Rose, a customizable high impact-sniper rifle, with a collapsible laser sharpened titanium-alloy blade scythe attachment"
"A what"
Chu-chink
"It's also a gun"
"Oh… That's awesome." Jaune said intimidated but also slightly aroused.
"So can you show me yours."
"WAIT, WHA, WHA, WHAT."
"Your weapon?" Ruby corrected face red after just realizing what she just said.
"Oh yeah, of course, hehe. I have this sword, and two shields"
"Cool, um, what do they do"
"Well, my sword Odin's sharrow, well,, um,, helps me control my semblance, and one of my shields is made of scales and anti-fire dust that makes immune to fire and cuts on impact, and my other one can absorb light and can shoot a laser," Jaune finished slightly proud.
Huh, so that's what his reward for the Hell Elk. I decided now would be a good point to make them aware of my continued existence, also because for the last hundred yards or so Juane has been dragging me by my foot along the path.
"I personally only have a crossbow that's also a grappling hook and a staff that is good for spells."
"Holy Crap"
"Good see you're not dead," Jaune said we bit apathetic, cause I cut off his alone time with a girl.
"Me too, so now that I'm not a corps any idea where we're supposed to be"
"I donna know I was following Jaune."
"Wait I was following you," Jaune said with a manic expression.
"I was being dragged," I stone-faced.
Knowing that if we were late to orientation we would be more screwed than an Atleisan whore, we booked it a direction and ran like headless chickens until we can apon a very nice landscaper that pointed us the right direction.
We entered the grand hall, large stone spires of granite elf the ceiling The gray wall were adorned with hundreds of painting, photos, murals and other assorted artwork, depicting great heroes to landscapes to interpretive pieces, but they all had one thing in common, color lots and lots of colors. The people sharing the space where equally colorful despite what you might think watching the episode, we stood in ah in the entryway until Ruby shot off after her sister now barefoot. We were about to find a spot when Ruby waved us over, not ones to be rude we strode over and caught a bit of their conversation.
"And this girl with really white hair blew up Mark and he was all burned with charcoal and ash on his face, but his clothes weren't burnt for some reason," she continued to babble until the object of her story stood right behind her and spooked her.
"YOU ABSOLUTE DOLT DO YOU KNOW HOW ABSOLUTELY NEANDERTHALIC YOUR ACTIONS WERE YOUR LUCKY WE WERE NoT BLOWN OFF THE SIDE OF THE KLIFF"
"Actually you are the one to"
"Mr. Vomit knight I must ask you to keep your servant quiet while the people are talking, and I suggest you discipline it before it dones its mask and tries to blow us all up."
I must say that I was indeed stunned by that much blatant racism, I knew it was a lot worse here than in the show but when it's just laid out bare at your feet it's we bit surprising, I had of course after hearing something so, let's say surprising, I had turned blue, while Juane turned red, I was about to stop him from pounding the aris but I wasn't in the mood and I had noticed a certain buxome ninja girl with a scowl and her amber eyes in a squint, about to pull her blade so while Jaunes fist was clenched ready to give another scar. I slipped around next to the nightshade and simply whispers into an ear.
"It wouldn't do well to expose yourself on the first day after taking so much trouble to hide, don't worry she'll get her just dos soon."
She stared at me in shock and fear, crap wasn't going for intimidation there, um think quick.
"Don't worry I have no intention of ratting out the Chief's daughter, but just know that he does miss you a lot, and you're always welcome to come back."
I didn't actually know that first hand but That's the feeling I got when I read some of his post-Blake running away speeches. But let me tell you it was certainly a surreal experience finding that out, one day after train I was reading while swirling the water with my mind like you do, and then one jaw-dropping revelation later I have water all over my new shirt.
Anyways Jaune almost decided not to punch her, up until she warned Blake, Not releasing her purrfectly hidden attachments, who stood next me to watch out if she wanted to keep her virginity. Jaunes Eyes bugged out, his muscles clenched, that one purple vein in his neck that bulges out whenever he tries to lift something too heavy, he just began to raise his fist when I put my hand on his arm and gave him a shake of the head meant to say don't worry about it, I turned away from the white bitch and pulled my mead in a different direction, to tell Juane I were going to leave and that he should come. He did along with the sisters still stunned.
The speech was the same as in canon the only difference was afterward when Ozpin was stepping down he looked me right and the eyes and smirked. I need to get me one of those coffee cups that let you smirk like that.
After the speech, we were told my miss GoodWItch to follow the yellow tiles to the cafeteria. Apparently Beacon runs on a system were most of the tiles are grey except for a single line going down corridors, because the castle is split up into different sections relating to different uses: Yellow was Domestic essentials, Caffettiera, bathrooms, and the such, Blue is the dorms, Green is Crafts works= Forges, workshops, even an art room, REd is emergency exits, Blue is for educational, such as, classrooms, a dark room, libraries, even the auditorium were in, and finally white equalling domestic amenities, a common area, a communal kitchen, a theater, yes there is a movie night every two weeks, a meditation room, a garden, and my favourite an av room. Companies will donate stuff to beacon all the time as a way to say thanks for keeping the baddies away, and those include electronic companies meaning every gaming system for the last twenty years with video games of every genre tv screens that are actually holograms, and a three D printer. These remedies, however, are only for those with at least a 3.0 Gpa because they are a privilege, not a right and that if we can't be responsible enough to manage our time then we aren't responsible enough to be hunters, or that's at least what Goodwitch told us.
The cafeteria was way better than the hospital food I had grown up with, Jaune said it was better than most colleges but I had to take his word for it. I found out that Ruby had really liked ketchup, and I mean a lot like she puts it on her cookies. After we were fat and happy we were sent to out to the empty ballroom that will be where we stay until tomorrow, because the schools didn't want to set up so many dorm rooms for all us because by tomorrow sixty five percent of the group will be gone. The ballroom was just like the auditorium only with a disco ball and fascia curtains.
Everyone was getting into their sleep were, me in a very large blank t-shirt and shorts and Jaune in a pair of sweatpants because some who shall not be named stole his footie pajamas with a dust golem and set them on fire and them replaced them with standard sleep whare because they didn't want Jaune to make an Ass of himself, I wonder who it was.
Ruby and Yang set up next to us and we talked, well Jaune and Ruby talked, I and Yang just punned at each other for a while, you could say it was a battle of prequels. Weiss glared at us for a while but didn't say anything, I waved Blake good night, and eventually, we burned out.
Tomorrow was bright and sunny the rays hitting my skin felt amazing, I never knew it could feel so good to just stand in the sun but it was.
We found Jaunes locker pretty easily it was right next to mine on the way I ran into Nora and Ren and introduced ourselves, Nora was jumping up and down in excitement and complimented my battle attire.
It was a black leather trench coat with a ton of pockets on the inside with the Words Momento Mori in white on the back, with some strange bulges underneath. On the inside was my Beowulf pants with a harness and some light grieves, with a loose grey shirt with a flaming skull on it. The shirt was fireproof and was enchanted to keep me at seventy degrees Fahrenheit, the Enchantment was what I call Insulation isolation. Under the shirt was a tight tactical shirt applicable of deflecting knives and small caliber rounds. I had enough poison flasks and grenades to kill small town. While I was talking to the two Jaune kinda wandered off to confront Weiss but instead ended up talking to Pyrrha, and ended up with quirky making her fall for him somehow. It was time to get this party started.
We all lined up on the field by the cliff the platforms primed and ready to launch us away. I was about six people up from Jaune. I was ready and waiting. Jaune started panicking and asking how they were supposed to land, uh I knew I forgot something. My ruminations were interrupted by the platform sending into the forest at over sixty mph.
I didn't panic instead I smirked and maneuvered myself into a more stable position with my stomach parallel to the ground I was prepared to deploy my landing strategy, or that's what I would have done if for not me hearing a scream and a gun stop halfway through my turn when I was perpendicular to the ground and was suddenly impaled through the shoulder by a red spear rifle with a blond knight attached to it. I impacted the tree about three seconds later and sighed.
"Hi Mark"
"Hey Jaune"
Wow it took me awhile to get this one out, but I have a good excuse namely my wrist becoming infected and necessitating surgery, Don't worry I am fine now.
I must thank everyone who reviewed and fallow you guys are the ones that give me the motivation to continue to thank you so much.
New poll up for those interested, this time; what is Mark's spirit animal
If anyone has any ideas for new skills, perks, weapons, etc Leave a comment.