Chronicle of the Eternal: Volume 1 (21 page)

“He wasn’t moving very
fast, but that diligence is truly remarkable,” Sampson says to himself while
smiling at the peeled vegetables.

What Sampson doesn’t know,
however, is that even though Regal has only been peeling potatoes for half of a
day, his ‘Cooking: Beginner’ skill has reached level 6 already. It is a
frightening talent that would make even him, a master chef, green with envy.

***************************************************

The following day, Regal
returns to Bluemist Academy, arriving just before class. To his surprise, all
the students are congregated in the academy field. The teachers have rounded up
all the students and brought them together for an announcement that Regal
arrives just in time for.

Regal silently slips into
the crowd and finds Veronica, Kilde, Astore and Piora. He moves next to them
like a ghost and is already there before they notice his presence. Regal missed
the earlier section of the speech, but fortunately arrives just in time for the
main announcement.

“Students, as you should
all be aware, the inter academy tournament is coming soon, and we have to pick
three students to represent us,” Mr. Razor says loudly so everyone in the crowd
can clearly hear.

“Naturally, we have chosen
the strongest and most gifted among you for this role. This is not up for
debate, and is the result of the countless duels you have had among one
another.”

“Class 4, Hazel Marquis.”

“Class 1. Lawe Haven.”

“Class 4, Regal Havier.”

“You three will represent
our academy in the up and coming tournament. I hope you can bring many
victories for our academy, but remember that the competition is fierce. The
three students I named – stay behind. The rest of you – off to your
classrooms.”

The students become
incredibly lively after the announcement of the upcoming inter academy
tournament. All of them share their opinions with each other as they walk,
though their discussions fade away as they enter the academy building and head
toward their classrooms.

Regal, Hazel and Lawe stay
behind while the teachers explain the rules of the tournament so that they are
prepared.

“Why didn’t you choose
Piora instead of me? She is stronger than I am,” Regal asks the teachers,
confused at being chosen.

Mr. Razor is the one to
reply, “Because you can use ‘Foresight’ to an excellent degree. She may be able
to defeat you in a duel at the moment, but that is because she knows your
skills and attacks. If you two were to duel without knowing each other at all,
you would have the advantage. This tournament will be full of new people so you
are the best choice.”

Regal only partially
understands the teacher’s words, but he still nods in agreement.

“Now, you three young
ones,” Miss Yatta coquettishly smiles at the chosen students, “I will explain
the rules for the tournament.”

“The tournament works on a
point-based system, but it also functions as a knockout tournament. You will be
chosen to duel with another random student, and the winner will get to proceed
to the next round, but this is where the point system comes in. Each duel will
have three judges, who will each judge both the winner and loser, and give them
a score out of one hundred based on how well they fought. The three judges’
scores are added up and that becomes your total score, up to a maximum of three
hundred points.”

“What if there are an odd
number of participants?” Hazel asks curiously.

Mr. Razor coughs lightly
and explains, “One student will be chosen to automatically advance to the next
round. That student won’t get any points but instead a credit, which will be
added onto their score at the end of the tournament based on their average
performance.”

“Hey! Don’t cut me off,”
Miss Yatta scolds the teacher grumpily. “As I was saying, that’s how the
tournament works. The winning students who move to the next round will get to
fight again, getting another final score out of three hundred added onto their
initial score. This repeats until the final two winners fight their duel. Do
you understand how it works?”

“I think I do,” Hazel
speaks with uncertainty, trying to calculate how the point system functions and
how it affects the final results.

Lawe looks at the teachers
indifferently, as if he doesn’t care at all. Regal fully comprehends how it
works, but still has a few questions.

“Miss Yatta, how many
students participate in the tournament?”

“A total of 255 students
participate, three from every academy.”

“There are 85 academies!?”

“Ah, youth, to be so young
and innocent,” Ms Yatta stares off into the distance longingly as she reflects
on her own youth. “That is correct. There are twenty academies on each of the
first three floors, fifteen on the fourth, and only ten on the fifth.”

Regal, upon hearing this
new information which he has never considered before, grows more excited and
continues pestering Miss Yatta. “What about above the fifth floor? Wouldn’t
there be more academies?”

“There are no academiens
above the fifth floor.”

“Why-”

“That’s enough questions,
it is time to go to class. If you want to know anything else, ask Mr. River
when you get the chance.”

Miss Yatta winks at Regal
before taking her leave. Mr. Razor and Mr. Hanya also tell the students to go
to class before walking toward their respective classes. Of course, Mr. River
had left earlier, as he held no interest in taking the time to explain the
tournament to the students.

Regal can only feel regret
knowing that he isn’t likely to get any proper advice from his teacher, whose
only interest is not being interested. He returns to his class with Hazel, who
 is paying no attention to Regal, and pointedly ignores him when he
awkwardly asks for her opinion on the tournament. Regal is confused as to why
this girl, who always seems so friendly, is ignoring him, but decides to pay it
little attention.

Class begins with lessons
on the vast variety of areas found on the world of Grandosa. The desolate
wasteland outside of Grand Theore is only a small part of the world. Beyond the
wasteland lies endless deserts, forests, and towering mountain ranges, just to
name a few.

South of Grand City
Rodrick is an ocean that is rumored to have no end. Grand Theore is the northernmost
grand city, and the southernmost, Grand City Rodrick, is so far from Grand
Theore it would take years to travel there using the fastest transport
possible: an airship.

The students try to
imagine what the ocean looks like, but they can’t picture what water as far as
the eye can see would look like. As they’ve never seen a flat horizon before,
only the craggy mountain ranges around Grand Theore, their imagination runs
wild picturing what a mountain range of water on the horizon would look like.

To dispel the students’
nonsensical whispers that are giving him a headache, Mr. River takes an old
painting of the ocean out of his inventory, handing it to the students to
study.

Regal crowds around the
other students who are curiously trying to have a look at the painting. He is
utterly shocked when he sees it. The ocean is an endless expanse of blue,
touching the sky on the horizon where they meet. It gives Regal the same
feeling of an unfathomable size that the sky does.

Mr. River falls into a
light slumber while sitting upright on his chair. Not a single student notices
this for two hours as they are too busy discussing the ocean and what it must
be like.

The rest of the day passes
extremely quickly for the students, who are excited by both the idea of the
ocean and the news of the tournament. The students’ enthusiasm for the
tournament continues throughout the week. The teachers arrange for extra
practical lessons for the students to duel, dedicating a lot of time to Regal,
Hazel, and Lawe, and giving them advice to help them improve.

Even during lunch break,
the students form rings on the field and duel each other. The teachers would
normally stop this, but considering the festive mood everyone is in, they
decide to turn a blind eye.

Before Regal realizes it,
the entire week is gone and it is time for him to return to his weekend job at
Sunny Hill Restaurant. Sampson is surprised on the first day when Regal
finishes peeling all the sacks of potatoes. On the second day, he moves Regal
on to his next task and takes him to a small private kitchen at the rear of the
shop and says the following:

“Your ‘Cooking: Beginner’
skill is too low to help prepare our restaurant’s meals, it will only worsen
the taste that we are known for. Here is the book I was given when I was an
apprentice. It has hundreds of easy recipes for imperishable food that many
hunters are fond of. Your next task is to create ten of each recipe in the
book, then package them so they are ready for sale. You don’t have to sell them
yourself, I have a couple of stalls around the other market places for that.
All the ingredients you will need can be found in either this kitchen, or the
large shop fridge.”

Sampson places a large
worn book on the kitchen bench, patting it tenderly while reminiscing about a
time long passed. He also goes through the kitchen once more with Regal,
testing his knowledge on all the tools and reminding him of any which he had
forgotten the use of.

Finished setting Regal up,
Sampson returns to the shop to welcome any customers arriving for breakfast.

Regal excitedly
anticipates cooking his first proper meal and doesn’t hesitate to open the
recipe book and inspect the first page. He is disappointed to see it is only
cestus bread, a type of bread made with cestus seed, the seed-plant that grows
like weeds everywhere, even in the wasteland.

The process for cestus
bread is easy, all Regal has to do is grind up cestus seeds, mix them with
flour, milk, and salt, which creates a malleable dough. Then knead it into
shape and place it in the oven. The bread cooks in twenty minutes. More than
one can cook in the oven at the same time, and the recipe in the cookbook makes
three loaves. Regal makes ten batches of three loaves, only two of them failing
during the cooking process.

Finally, Regal takes three
loaves of cestus bread and places them in a single bag before tying off the
end. He repeats this process until he has a full set of ten bags.

Each loaf of bread is not
only filling, but it temporarily improves stamina regeneration and restores a
small amount of health. The effects may be negligible, but all new hunters who
can’t sustain constant battle rely on them greatly.

The next recipe is potato
stew. Just when Regal thought he was done with potatoes, he was back to using
them again. He also can’t use the ones he already peeled and has to prepare
more.

He repeatedly makes the
dishes in the book without a break all day, only munching on some leftovers
when he becomes hungry. The food he makes doesn’t taste bad like it used to,
but the flavors are still pretty bland.

By the end of the day, he
manages to get ten percent through the cookbook. He would start to increase his
speed as he repeatedly makes a single dish, but before he could start to
experiment and show his talents, it would be time to start on the next recipe.

An enormous pile of
packaged food is stacked up against the far wall and the room is full of
different aromas with a salty aftertaste, with salt being the main ingredient
used to preserve the food. When Sampson enters the room, he gives a hearty
laugh of approval at the large amount of food Regal prepared.

He follows up by asking
him what level his ‘Cooking: Beginner’ skill has reached, and upon hearing that
it is level 20, is completely shocked. Regal got both the Tier 2 Divine Art
‘Butchering’, allowing him to harvest meat directly from fresh mutant beasts
and monster corpses, and the passive Tier 3 Divine Art ‘Dex +3’.

Seeing the head chef at a
loss of words, Regal’s pride causes a cheeky grin to slip over his face.
Sampson, of course, doesn’t let him gloat for long and smacks him on the back
of his head before sending him home. Regal opens his stats and looks them over
as he leaves the restaurant, his confidence growing for the coming tournament.