The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) LitRPG Series Read online

  “The wrong one…,” I drawled, looking at the smiling teacher. “Whom should I ask these questions?”

  “The one who has the knowledge and can share it.” The old man was obviously amused.

  A sudden guess flashed through my mind:

  “Is there someone in the Academy who knows the answers to my question about the Game and is capable of sharing this knowledge?”

  “Of course.” His smile grew wider. “This is the place for receiving knowledge. It has all sorts of things!”

  “Where would one find this being?” Getting information from him was like pulling teeth.

  “In the Academy‒ where else?”

  "Where in the Academy is that being located and what is the shortest road to it?" I asked in the most detailed way, following the principles used for working with the Temple of Knowledge.

  “That is the wrong question, recruit, so our conversation is over.” The smile instantly faded and the old man again turned into a statue without emotions. “Are you ready to transfer the information you received earlier into the book?”

  “I am ready,” I drawled with displeasure, scolding myself internally. Who would try to find out the information so obviously?

  “Remember everything you want to transfer into the book,” the old man clarified; after that the Book of Knowledge burst from its holder on my thigh and flew into the air, hovering right in front of my eyes.

  Artifact update process initiated

  The Book changed. The pages that had been empty were now partially filled with text and pictures. The moment I fixed my eyes on some area in the book it would mysteriously zoom in, enabling me to read the text. At this time the book was showing a detailed report of my meeting with the first teacher: the old man’s picture, a full record of the conversation, a panoramic view of our surroundings, including the names of trees and plants. Some of the plants had question marks floating over them, indicating that I had no information about the object at this time. In effect, the Book of Knowledge turned out to be sort of a video recording device that registered everything that I looked at. Stop. I had the video activated! Why would I need to remember things when I could just watch the record again?

  “That’s an interesting solution,” the old man drawled as soon as the Book of Knowledge occupied its place at my thigh. Thanks to Archibald, my video recording had been activated ever since we met and now, once I pushed the “Video record” a thin white thread seemingly made of thick white fog formed between the icon and the Book of Knowledge. After a few moments it disappeared, and so did the “Video record” icon from the status bar. The unpleasant part was that now “Video record” did not show at all when I opened the properties. It simply was not there! I was about to get upset when new messages appeared before me:

  Video recording integrated with artifact

  Book of Knowledge received +1 Experience

  “Now that all your player knowledge is in the Book, you need to select the initial artifact trait,” the old man continued as soon as I was able to tear myself away from the updated artifact. Pictures of Archibald, Sharda and our entire former team occupied places of honor there. However, it took time getting to them: the Book had no navigation, search, or table of contents. In order to find information you needed, you had to leaf through the book page by page, looking at the contents. Basically, the Book of Knowledge was like a huge Wikipedia, with each page dedicated to one specific subject. For example, “Academy Teacher No. 3”, “Archibald”, or “New player welcome ceremony”; the pages had references to each other, sort of like hyperlinks. Actually, that’s how I was able to find Sharda and other Paladins I knew. Including Dietrich, whose page said: “Killed in the Academy”.

  “Do the traits include the possibility for information structuring and search?” was the first thing I asked the old man. It would be totally stupid to be a world explorer and not have immediate access to the notes in the Book.

  “Could you explain what you mean?” The old man came out of the ‘statue’ mode again and regarded me with interest. Since I had the page on him still hovering in front of me, I could see information updated in real time. A new line appeared in the Book:

  “Academy Teacher No. 3 is favorable towards recruits who seek information. Never ask him direct questions on how to do things. The method to use is indirect hints and a circuitous approach.”

  “There are two points. The first thing is: upon looking at any object at a mental command I would like to have in front of me all the information about it available in the Book of Knowledge. The second thing: even if there is no object available, but I have a clear understanding of who or what is the subject, at a mental command I would like to have all that information as well.

  “Is my understanding correct that you need to search?” the teacher clarified, and mischief danced in his eyes. That was an amazing combination — an outwardly calm old man with eyes dancing with mischief.

  “Not just search,” I began cautiously. ”Intelligent perception and comparison with available information, structuring the available information, table of contents and, of course, the search itself."

  “In effect, you need context search with mental control?” the old man clarified again. “Catalog capability, tags, table of contents, index, navigation and other things: it includes all that. Also, comparison of outside world objects and information in the Book. This trait is actually called ‘Context search’. Do you want to add this?”

  “I would like to verify what is the path for upgrading this trait.” I remembered in time that in the Game everything develops. Including artifact properties.

  "At level one, which you will receive now, search and comparison will be available,” the teacher started explaining. “The second level will have navigation and an alphabetical index. The fifth: table of contents. The tenth will provide tags. At level fifteen there will be a capability for downloading information. Further upgrades will depend on the development path that will be chosen at level fifteen, so I will not describe that now. Do you want to add this?”

  “Yes, let’s,” I nodded, and messages flashed in front of my eyes, informing me of the addition of the new trait.

  “Actually, this completes your training with me. This is all I have for you. Move on to other teachers and may luck be with you!”

  “Wait!" I yelled and the surroundings that were starting to dissipate became firm again.

  “Is something unclear about the artifact?” the teacher was surprised.

  “No, it’s fine,” I already checked out the semitransparent pop-up window with information. The search worked like clockwork. “I have a different question: after we return to the Academy, will we be in the exact same place or is it possible to alter the point of return? Even if it were just by a couple of meters?”

  “Where do you think we are right now?” The teacher raised an eyebrow in a question.

  “In an extratemporal subspace of the Academy,” I ventured a guess. “You need to instruct thirty two thousand recruits. Even if you spend a minute per person, that training would take twenty two days without sleeping and eating. But you spent about twenty minutes with me just now. Therefore, we are in a temporal pocket, and hardly a moment will have passed in the Academy.”

  “You answered your own question,” the teacher cornered me. “No matter where you go within this world, which is limited by this small clearing, you will still return to the same point in space and time from where you left to train with me. You will not be able to escape from the mages this way.

  “So you did see all that?”

  “Do I look like I’m blind? The mage recruits, prior to arriving at the academy, took a ‘Mihonarium’ potion which enabled them to wake up immediately; they organized themselves and, while everyone else was still asleep, dragged you over to me. People do that frequently.

  “And you are going to do nothing about it?”

  “What for? Sooner or later you will die‒ you have arrived at that thought yourself.
Why should it not happen sooner? You will serve to provide experience to your peers. In the Game nothing is wasted. If that was the only question for which you stopped me, I have to leave you now. As you rightly noticed, there are thirty two thousand new recruits waiting for me.”

  The space around me shifted and in a couple of moments rearranged itself into the Academy and the mages holding my arms.

  “Your artifact is activated and the information has been transferred,” said the teacher. — “There is nothing else I can teach you!”

  You receive +1000 Experience

  New level attained

  You receive +1 Energy level

  “Excellent!” The leader of the five mages replied with satisfaction to the teacher’s statement. “Four more teachers and then we’ll finish him off. Let’s clean up everything here!”

  I was finally able to take a good look at what the Academy actually was. There was a huge area littered with players, as if they were bodies in an enormous battlefield. The heaving chest and nervously twitching tip of the tail of a reptilian lying next to us made it clear that he was just sleeping. Apparently, the players would be waking in succession so as to avoid a crush around the teacher; but now there were only six players on their feet: myself and the five mages: three humans, an elf and some strange winged creature. I could not see the murdered Paladins from my team. Most likely they would be at a respawn point; I didn’t know how long this process took. I hoped Logir would be able to find me and fulfill the task posed by Sharda. I did not have much hope for the others. At the opposite side of the clearing by the sleeping players there was a steel and stone jungle – a jumble of stone boulders, twisted steel rails, wooden studs and hell only knows what else. As if at some point a tall multistory building had been standing here and then, due to some catastrophe, it collapsed into pieces, baring all its internal works and not quite falling to the ground. From where we were standing it was possible to see two passages into this crazy three-dimensional labyrinth.

  “Every one of them?” the elf said, confused. “Olzar, but there are a couple of hundred of them here! Devir said nothing about the other players, and the Pals will respawn only after an hour.”

  Book of Knowledge received +1 Experience

  “Every single one!” sharply said Olzar, the lead of the mage recruits. “Each player you leave alive is a potential enemy. Besides, don’t forget – there may be not just first levels here, so we’ll get experience points. Wipe them all out!”

  “What do we do with him?” A mage nodded in my direction.

  “He won't go anywhere, right?” Olzar smirked bloodthirstily bending over the nearest player. “We already broke him. You wouldn’t mind standing here, right, little Paladin?”

  Knowing what was expected of me, I quickly nodded, and even gasped when the player Olzar strangled vanished as if he had never existed. Even the grass was not crushed. Like myself, Olzar had no weapons, so he had to have killed the player with his bare hands.

  “I bet a granis that I’ll get a level 2!” the mage of unknown race yelled merrily, rushing to the players on the ground. The mages who had been holding my arms were not far behind joining Olzar and the rest; almost immediately I heard one of them shout with joy:

  “Yes! This one is level two! Crap! Olzar, did they show you how to turn off these messages in front of your eyes? It’s OK now, but later there will be more and more of them!”

  “Look at the character properties,” the leader responded angrily, moving on to the next player. Judging from his mood he was getting just first levels. “The options will open when you click on the name. Enough: stop distracting me!”

  The mages set to work diligently while I was gradually moving, step by step, towards the labyrinth of stone and steel, remembering to startle after each joyful shout. Attacking five level 3 players would be pointless: they would overpower me and tie me up even without their abilities. The teacher near whom we were did not provide training on spells and ways for working with them, so the mages had to kill the recumbent players using only their hands, by strangling them. Struggling with the players who immediately woke up required their complete concentration, so for a while they forgot about me. Besides, really, to where could I escape from them? There were only two roads leading away from this area, and they were certainly controlled by groups of other mages. That meant I could not use the conventional paths available to everyone else.

  “Hey, where’s the Paladin?!” a stunned exclamation from Olzar was music to my ears. It took me about ten minutes of moving step by a cautious step to reach the border of the steel-and-rock labyrinth, another moment to make sure that all the mages were occupied with their opponents, after which I crouched behind the nearest boulder. My heart was racing like crazy, I was gasping noisily, but I was in no hurry to get up and run ahead full tilt. A year of service as a trooper combined with clashes with real fighters that Sintsov arranged periodically had been drilled into me: I started thinking. I slowly crawled into the jungle for a couple of meters, then, making sure to keep some boulders between me and the clearing, started climbing upwards. My body was shaking from an adrenaline rush, so I had to control my every movement. Falling down headlong would take just one wrong move. The image that I was trying to create would lead them to believe I was frightened and weak, so the mages should be supposing now that I must be running as fast as I could into the heart of the maze. Some messed up headhunters indeed! If I were to be testing them I would be throwing them out on their ears for incompetence!

  “Sirin, Belket?”

  “He’s gone!” voices replied from right and left. I was correct: mages controlled the passages. That meant there were not five of them in this team but seven. They were not completely clueless after all.

  “Did he try to go straight through?” There was even more confusion in Olzar’s voice now. “Who can recall – where was he standing?”

  “Here somewhere, I think!” someone replied. “You said he was done in?”

  “I did! That’s what Devir said!”

  “Damn it! Where are we going to catch him now?”

  “Jerk… let’s run to the respawn point! Yari is level two, it’s impossible to survive in the jungle, so in a couple of hours he’ll show up there. Let’s go.”

  “We are not going to finish off the rest?”

  “Let them live, we’ll get them later. The most important thing is to be there first, otherwise we’ll have to fight tooth and claw for it. Every team wants to get a reward from Devir.”

  “What, are we not going to follow him into the jungle? He could be standing right at the edge laughing at us!” one of the mages asked in surprise. I clenched my fists helplessly – who made that smart-ass open his mouth?! I so wanted to strangle him!

  “Into the jungle?” It was not even Olzar who laughed but the other mages. “Dude, only after you! What, did you miss all the lectures?”

  “I didn’t, but we still ought to check!”

  “I already checked!” A new voice I had not heard previously replied from practically underneath me! I clung to the steel beam on which I was lying and held still. The eighth mage! How many are there all together?! “There's no Pal and no tracks. Looks like this idiot is just running headlong at full speed. Olzar, why in hell didn't you guard him?”

  “What are you doing here?” Olzar was taken aback. I would give a lot for a glance at the new arrival but moving was out of the question. The slightest noise could betray me.

  “Watching over you, morons! There were no Paladins at our spawn point, so after the training we rushed to the nearest teacher, which was here; and you are doing hell knows what!”

  “Yari is ours! We found him first!”

  “Just because you spawned at the same site with him does not mean you have already won. To lose a first level player! This is complete nonsense!”

  “He’s already level two, we went through the training,” since Olzar was the one who answered every time it seemed the status of the new mage
was much higher than his own. There was a possibility he was one of that pair that showed up together with Devir during the welcome ceremony. The one that behaved like he was the center of the universe. There was nothing else that could explain his tone.

  Book of Knowledge received +1 Experience

  I guessed right?! Judging from the new message that appeared, the capabilities of the Book of Knowledge were much broader than I had supposed. Using some attributes unknown to me, maybe voice, smell or body movement patterns, or maybe something else, the book identified the player and, since I had guessed correctly who it could be, counted it as a correct answer. Immediately I brought up in front of me the page with information I had available for the guy and was barely able to hold back a sigh of disappointment: without my help the artifact was unable to determine which one of Devir’s companions was standing underneath me right now. Both portraits were shown with an exclamation point before them. So it was one of the two. No name, no description, nothing. Just a note that this was one of Devir’s companions and probably a student of his.

  “What are you standing here for?! You expect me to finish off the bodies for you?”

  “But…”

  “All three respawn points have been under control since the very first minutes, so Yari will not get away. Strangle the rest. The fewer non-mages there are left among the non-initiated, the better!”

  For thirty minutes I sat on the steel beam listening to death-rattles. This time there was no elation, the mages were just doing the work. The number of concurrent sounds told me that another group had shown up at the clearing. That meant the second spawn point of the players and, consequently, the second teacher, were not that far. I definitely could not go there. When yet another message appeared notifying me of experience received by the artifact I had enough and followed Olzar’s advice: changed the settings and removed notifications of experience received, damage and other stats leaving just the most important ones: updates or receiving quests, general information and global information messages. I could see everything else in the properties, while constantly staring at Book of Knowledge received +1 Experience was not very tempting. If I live to see something “constant” anyway…