Martial Arts Worlds

Third Volume - God Island's Mayhem.

…

It was a dark, starry night in the gloomy city of Irio.

Nobody was in sight, and the streets were eerily quiet, as if there was a curfew in place, not allowing anyone outside a certain hour.

The snow covered the ground like a white blanket, and the air was as cold as hell itself.

Those two were the reasons why nobody bothered to go outside.

Fireplaces burned inside everyone's house.

With hot chocolate in hand, parents tucked in their children on their beds, kissed them on the forehead, and turned off the lights.

It had been a few days since the annual winter celebration, and the end of the year was already in sight.

Winter decorations still adorned every house, and the street lamps cast a warm glow on the snowy ground.

Currently, inside the Hunter household, everyone had gone to sleep except one young man, who was sitting on his bed and watching the snow fall gently outside of his window.

Fen, who had grown slightly in the past few months, was sleeping peacefully in his bed, using Kiernan's pillow as a makeshift bed while dreaming about chasing rabbits through a meadow on a sunny day.

Kiernan wasn't sleeping just yet because it was a special day.

At the time of midnight, he would finally turn eighteen years old and would enter the Age of Growth.

It was a special moment in every kid's life, as when they entered the Age of Growth, their true talent would reveal itself, and their speed of growth would increase exponentially.

Kiernan had noticed that it was very hard for him to advance any further.

He'd been stuck in High Stage Martial Champion since the nationals, which happened about half a year ago, and he didn't feel like he was anywhere close to advancing to Martial Master.

"…"

Kiernan took out his phone and checked the time.

It was one minute before midnight.

"I wonder if I feel anything or if I am just suddenly more talented."

Kiernan thought out loud, wondering how Age of Growth actually worked as to him, it didn't make much sense.

He had been reading about it on the Internet for the last few weeks after remembering that he was about to turn eighteen.

At that moment, the final seconds ticked down, and midnight struck.

Ding! Ding!

The system immediately reacted.

[Congratulations on turning 18 years old!]

[You've entered the Age of Growth!]

[10,000 XP Acquired!]

"Oh?"

Kiernan's eyebrow jumped at the experience points, and then he pulled out his system interface to see how far he was from reaching the next level.

[Level 9]

He managed to reach level 9 during the past six months, which wasn't an easy task, as there weren't many ways of gaining experience points in Gaul and Irio.

He'd been in Gaul for the past few months, but a few weeks ago, the school ended for this year.

The school year ended early because the boarding school of Gaul wouldn't be operable this late in the season due to the harsh winter weather conditions.

Luckily, for next year, it sounded like Karuza High would be back, as it was currently being rebuilt.

The city of Irio was putting great effort into making it whole again, as they were the nationals championships.

They didn't want their winning team to stay in Gaul for multiple years and wanted them back to Irio within this very instant.

[XP: 31,990/32,000]

"Are you kidding me? I need 10 XP more? How unlucky can I be?"

Kiernan scratched the back of his head in annoyance and thought about ways of gaining quick experience points, as he wanted to level up and just use those stat points.

At that moment, he heard some noises coming from outside.

"Falling snow~ The dystopia of cold and the beauty of winter~"

Swaying side to side, a drunken man made his way down the street of the neighborhood, half-empty bottle of Cold Rock whiskey in hand.

The man laughed and continued singing.

"Winter is a blue-eyed woman, cold and distant like a dystopia of cold and the beauty of winter~"

He stopped walking, chugged down the alcohol, and threw the bottle away, but it shattered into a couple of pieces on the ground.

It was dangerous, as the pieces of the bottle would get hidden by the snow, and some children might get hurt while playing.

"Hey!"

The man heard a shout behind him, but before he could turn his head around, he felt a hand strike him in the nape.

His eyes rolled back to his skull, and he collapsed onto the cold ground.

"Twisted Amnesia…"

Kiernan looked at the unconscious man, then picked up the broken pieces of the whiskey before throwing them into a nearby trash can.

Ding! Ding!

[You have defeated Low Stage Martial Soldier!]

[15 XP Acquired!]

[LEVEL UP!]

[Level 9 → 10]

[XP: 5/64,000]

Kiernan thought that was the last of the notifications and headed over to the door, but when he was about to open the door, more of the notifications suddenly came.

[Congratulations on reaching Level 10!]

[System is ready for a new update!]

[Do you want to accept the update?]

[Y/N]

'An update? That's new… I don't see any reason for not accepting it, so…'

Kiernan pressed the "Yes" option.

[Downloading the update…]

[1%…]

It was downloading very slowly.

Kiernan shrugged his shoulders and then returned back to his room, where Fen was still sleeping soundly like a good boy.

'It sure is downloading slowly. I walked all the way from the front door to my room, and it hadn't budged even slightly.'

Kiernan thought, and knew that the downloading would most likely take the entire night, so he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

…

Ding! Ding!

Kiernan groaned, and his eyes fluttered open to the sound of the system's dinging noises, but when he opened his eyes, he noticed something interesting.

[Downloading completed!]

[System Level has been increased!]

[Beginner → Advanced]

'Oh? It has become advanced down. I wonder what that entails.'

Kiernan thought, but then something interesting popped into his vision.

[You have unlocked Quest Store!]

[System is now able to have conversations!]