Chapter 1 The Way Of Fire

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Synopsis of The Way Of Fire

Mark Farron is a boy who grew up on a small farm in a small world. He has always been dedicated and pragmatic so when he learned in school about the wider world about adventurers and about the powers everyone will get, he started planning.

This story follows Mark Farron's journey as he travels the many worlds big and small filled with danger and opportunity in this universe inspired by Isometric Hack-and-Slash Loot-Centric Action Role-Playing Games like Diablo and Path of Exile.

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The Way OF FIre

Chapter 1

A lot of people were at the house today, which was making me feel a little bit overwhelmed. Yet they were here for me, so I couldn’t escape. While technically my birthday was on Monday, we were all celebrating on Saturday as everyone had a chance to come and visit.

It had been a pleasant day, but I could see the glances my family was making towards me whenever they thought that I wasn’t looking. It made my idea to come out and say what I’m going to do even firmer, so it was time to stop wasting time. Everyone had come inside, so now should be a perfect time.

I stood up and coughed a little bit to get some attention. "I would like to start by thanking everyone for coming. It's nice to see everyone once again after the harvest, and it's nice to see everyone get together like this. It's no secret that my 16th birthday is on Monday, and I’m guessing every single one of you thinks that I’m going to leave here without saying anything?"

Before I could continue, my mother sat down, and I could see her starting to cry. My father looked at me, and I could see conflict in his eyes. I had expected anger, so that was surprising.

"Many of the young people who turn 16 run away from home to seek fortune. I would like to say that I don’t want to do that." My mother immediately looked up, hope in her eyes that I was going to unfortunately crush almost immediately.

"If I go, I want to be able to say a proper goodbye. And that 'if' is a strong if. If I get a heart crystal like my sisters, then I would not be going anywhere, even if that would mean all the training I have done would go to waste. If I, however, get something that would help in combat, I hope that you would all understand my decision to leave."

My mother had stopped crying, but she still looked sad; my father, however, looked proud.

"It seems that we have raised you right. While I don’t like it—which father would—you will be an adult in just two days, and it is your life to do what you want. Whatever the case might be, whether you leave or not, let us celebrate your 16th birthday." My quiet father said surprising not just me but everyone else.

It was a lot more socializing after that, but I didn’t feel like I needed to escape. It was instead nice. The whole situation seemed silly now, but everyone had been so worried that I would leave without saying anything and that this day would be their last seeing me. I made sure to tell everyone that even if I went, I would still visit them one more time.

Soon they started to leave when the time started to reach towards the night. We had just finished cleaning up the dishes when my father approached me. "Come to the living room. I have something to show you." It seems that my father could surprise me twice in a day, and after drying up my hands, I joined him in the living room.

When I entered, I stopped out of surprise because on his lap was a sword quite similar to the one I had, but mine was made out of iron, while this looked like monster-forged.

"This was your grandfather's before he came to this place to farm and raise a family. He said he was going to give it to me if I wanted to leave, but since I didn’t before he died, he told me to give it to a son of mine who did decide to leave.

"I have six children, five of them boys—now they’re all men, at least in two days. Even my daughter didn't want to leave. Yet it seems like my youngest does. I believe I do not have to tell you what this weapon is; it even has a skill crystal slot with a skill crystal inside of it."

He had been holding the sword at its hilt while it was still in its scabbard, but he thrust it towards me horizontally. "It is yours now. And yes, I know what you said before it’s still yours even if you stay."

I took the sword. "Thank you, I—" but he held up his hand. That was the signal that he had spoken enough. He has never been a man of many words; it was rare to hear him speak so much.

I didn’t leave; instead, I sat down on another chair, just admiring the sword for a few hours before we all went to sleep. None of us said anything, just doing our own things, but I think the presence we provided for each other was all we needed to say.

Sunday was a regular day at the farm. We did some chores like we always did, and nothing seemed out of the usual. After dinner, I was tired enough from the day's work to just go to sleep, as I had pushed myself a little bit harder than usual; otherwise, I don’t think I could have gone to sleep. Tomorrow, when I wake up, everything will be changed, or perhaps I will get a bad enough heart crystal that everything will still stay the same.

I opened my eyes just before the sun hit them. At first, nothing felt different, but as soon as my heart beat, I could feel warmth and strength coursing through my body. I could feel it so easily; it was my heart crystal finally mature enough to activate. It was so hard not to do the meditation exercise taught, but I held myself back just a little bit to drink a bit of water before I started.

I relaxed my breathing and then looked inward. It was a bit hard to do, but I had practiced this. It seems like the heart crystal was calling for me. Suddenly, I was unaware of the outside world and instead, I was inside of me and looking at my heart crystal. It was red and pulsing with strength with every heartbeat of mine.

It didn't have any rings around it, but that comes in time—a lot faster if I had anything that would help me fight better. What I was hoping for was something that would boost my body to make it stronger. While it was, in the grand scheme, a weak heart crystal, it would mean that survival at the start would be easier.

Yet I couldn’t help but imagine getting skills like Devastating Strike or perhaps even Flying. They would be incredibly powerful, especially in the future. It was time to stop delaying, so I looked more closely so I could understand what my heart crystal did.

"Fire Immunity."

My concentration broke, and I found myself in the sitting position I was in, in my room. “No, that couldn’t be real.” I’ve never even heard of that; all I've heard about is someone getting major fire resistances, but those are incredibly rare, or other elemental resistances, but immunity? How was that even possible?

Immediately, I went to the candle on the reading table and lit it. Slowly, I lowered my hand, yet it didn't feel hot; it actually felt pleasant. Before I registered it, my hand was inside the flame, playing with it, yet nothing was happening to me. "This is dangerous," I heard myself whisper.

I just sat down to think about this. There were five major elements, and fire was one of them. Many monsters used fire; a lot of magic users used fire. This was incredibly powerful—not to speak of the implications to the passive tree. No one could know this, not even my parents.

Now, staying here was no longer an option, as one mistake would reveal the power of my heart crystal, and then someone would come to claim it. The only way for me to survive was to keep this hidden until I was powerful enough that it didn’t matter if someone knew or not. Of course, dying would also be preferable to staying here; otherwise, I think I would get my entire family killed as well.

My game plan needed to change, so I spent the next half hour just sitting and thinking about my next actions. It was clear that I needed to leave, and fast. So I stood up, pinched the candle wick to make it go out, and started to gather all my things. I only needed to pack up a few things, as most things were already packed up, as I really was hoping that I would get something that would help me fight.

Wait, before I leave. I should be able to get information about the sword I have. I picked it up and concentrated on it. It was simply called Scimitar, and it seems to be a grey weapon—the lowest grade. Yet it still had a green skill crystal slot.

Now I should also be able to remove the skill crystal, so I concentrated on the pommel. A moment later, the crystal popped out, quickly grew in size to go from the small grape size it was to the size of my whole hand. I could still hold it easily enough, but what surprised me was that it weighed so little.

Once again, I concentrated on it to figure out that it was a level 2 Lunging Strike skill. It will help close a distance of 1.8 meters—a lot faster than was humanly possible—to help you surprise and attack someone faster than they expected. It was an excellent skill, and I was glad to have it. I popped the skill back into its socket and placed the sword on my belt so I could easily use it if needed.

Then I headed downstairs to see my father, mother, sister, and surprisingly one of my brothers waiting at the dinner table with breakfast served. None of them had touched a single piece, waiting for me. My mother started crying as soon as she saw the bag and that I had a sword on my belt.

"My heart crystal is useful in combat, so I will be leaving. But let's have breakfast before we get to our goodbyes." After my words, even my sister started to cry. My brother was acting tough, but I could see that he was on the verge of crying. He wouldn’t, I know that, but it was still nice to see. My father didn’t act tough as he always was, but even he seemed sad.

I was also sad that I was going to leave, but now it was more of a necessity to keep them safe. That somehow made me feel better. The breakfast was nice, and my mother hugged me afterwards a lot longer than I was comfortable with, but I didn’t push her away. I let her have her moment.

The goodbyes were over, and I left my home I had known my whole life. I looked back to it, knowing that most likely I will never see it again. The chances of me surviving were not good, yet many like me chose this route because of the riches at the end. If you succeeded, you would have wealth, power, and a longer life. All those things were hard to say no to, even if it was a low chance that you could make it.

Two of my brothers had farms and two lived in the village, although one came to visit so I don’t need to go to his place. The visits were long, but it was nice to properly say goodbye. My brother who lived in the village worked as a furniture maker. When he saw me, his mood dropped immediately. "Will you at least be staying here for the night and leaving in the morning?"

"I’m afraid not. While our connecting shard has the same time as ours, my destination is beyond that. If I can make good time, I should make my destination while it's still normal working hours there." He deflated at my words. We hugged each other for a while before he gave me a steel hatchet.

"Here, well, I know you have a knife for survival; a hatchet is arguably a better tool, especially for some circumstances. Don't ask about the cost; it doesn't matter. You're my brother, and even if this is the last time we see each other, I wouldn’t feel right without giving this to you. It has been with me a long time; I originally purchased it so I could leave, but eventually I changed my mind. Hope it could provide you with something I wasn’t brave enough to pursue."

"I will cherish it," was the only thing I could think of saying. He smiled at me.

"Now go, I wouldn’t want you to miss your arrival time." He said it playfully, but I still gave him one more hug before I turned around and left. My destination was two hours from here with the only mode of transport being walking.

It was a wide road, as this was the only exit from this shard. As I got closer, I could see the edge of this tiny world that could barely be called a moon. The only reason it was completely inhabited was because it was almost always the perfect season for growing food. If there had been more rainfall and the average temperature was even higher, it wouldn't be inhabited by normal farmers but instead people who grew magical plants.

Even now on this road, there were wagons full of grains heading towards the portal to be taken to another shard where it would be sold and then transported to yet another one. No one knew how many worlds like this were connected through the portals, and perhaps it was an infinite amount, but their sizes certainly differed.

There were shards that were big enough to have entire solar systems in them, and some were even smaller than ours. Whatever the case might be, it was all surrounded by the void. I had only been to the edge of this shard once. I even touched the edge, finding a solid wall that seemed to simultaneously suck and repel. It even radiated back my hands heat.

I heard from stories that if you were strong enough, you could push past this barrier, finding beyond it, incredible creatures and gruesome death. Personally, I thought these stories were just that—stories—but who knows what could be beyond the barrier.

Eventually, I reached the portal. It gave off a dark bluish light, and in front of it there were guards who were checking the wagons before letting them through. I stood in line, but it didn't take long for my turn to come. The guards gave me one look before they knew what was happening. "Boy, you should go back; your family is probably searching for you."

"I am here to declare myself as an adventurer," was the only answer I gave, which made one of them sigh out in frustration.

"That’s a stupid rule, but give me your name and I will register you," the guard said while pulling out a stone tablet.

"Mark Farron," I said to him, and he immediately tapped the name in.

Those tablets were amazing, but I had only been able to use them in the library to search out the books I was trying to read. This one should be connected to the Adventurer database. "Here, put your thumbprint on this location," the guard said while pointing at an obvious location where you should put your thumbprint.

I felt a small prick, knowing that the tablet just took a tiny sample of my blood to connect it with my name and thumbprint so no one could impersonate me. The Adventurer’s Guild was one of the largest organizations ever made supported by all the largest governments of different shards.

"Go wait in the line; we’re done here," the guard said after he finished filling out whatever form he needed to fill out to make me a prospect of the Adventurers Guild. He didn’t need to say it twice, and I quickly moved to stand behind one of the wagons that was filled with grain.

I had seen the blue portal before but never this close. It was more inviting than I expected, but it wasn't yet ready to accept another travel. Usually, with how small our shard is, the portal should only be able to accept a person traveling through it once every two or three days, but thanks to a power device connected to it, it is able to portal out a wagon every 15 minutes or so.

The waiting was unpleasant as I was a bit nervous. This would be my first time leaving my world. The proper word would be a shard, but as I was taught in school, many find the word ‘shard’ to be an insult, so we were told never to use it out loud in a new place. I guess I could understand that somewhat.

My home shard was small, we were one of the smallest inhabited shards in this cluster, but if you lived in a bigger one you wouldn’t want it to be called the same as small places like my home.

Time passed by faster than I expected as I was going through everything I needed in my mind for my next steps. So before long, I was instructed to go through the portal.

I didn’t expect to be so nervous, but finally, I took a deep breath in and stepped through. I didn’t even notice that I had stepped into a new world before I opened my eyes. The sun in this world was high up, but then I felt a breeze that was unfamiliar to me. I looked back to remind myself that the fixed weather patterns of my home shard were something not common. That fact will take me a while to get used to.

The city around me looked a lot richer than the village close to my father’s farm. All the buildings were at least three stories, built with stone and wood. The square I was in was also completely paved over by rectangular rocks. That looked like a lot of work. There were also a lot of people in the square.

I guess that would be because this square was meant for portal travel. The portal of my home shard was in the location it started in, but if you had enough resources and money, you could move those portals, and this place had done so, as I saw seven portals in this square, strategically located so it would be easy to transfer large amounts of goods through them if needed.

Before I went through another portal, I needed to visit the ticket office. It wasn’t too far, but I needed to wait in line once again. When my turn came, I quickly said, "I am a new adventurer seeking passage to the Three Moons world to start my training."

The ticket officer scrutinized me for a moment and then pulled out a tablet. "Here, I need your thumbprint."

I pressed my thumb against the device, and it beeped three times. "New indeed," the ticket officer said after he looked at the tablet.

"Looking at you, I suspect you want the fastest way possible without any stops, and I see that it might be possible if you don't miss a train on the way. Here, take these," the ticket officer said after stamping out a stack of tickets and then handing them to me. "Don't lose them; you won't get more."

"Yes, and thank you," I said before I left. The first ticket said Portal 5, so I quickly headed that way. It was a relatively short walk, and when I reached the portal, no one was there except for a few guards. After handing them the first ticket, they let me through allowing me to immediately enter this portal.

Once again, I was in a new world, but it looked quite similar to the last one, although the time was quite different, and I think it was messing with my mind. Pretty sure I was going to be dead tired by the end of this. Here, I needed to use one of the tickets on a self-propelled vehicle that I came to learn was a bus.

The city here smelled quite badly, and for the first time, I was glad that we were too poor to afford any advanced technologies. Everything here was so new, but at least the lanterns still looked like they were burning gas and weren’t mana lanterns. Although, if I understand, only the truly rich worlds could afford those.

This bus was also quite smelly and in a different way farms smelled. I didn’t like it. It was also loud, and it seems like every one of these kinds of vehicles had a horn that they liked using.

Fortunately, I don’t think there were many worlds that could regularly run so many of these kinds of vehicles, as most didn’t have access to black oil alchemists used to make the liquid these kinds of vehicles used to move.

It wasn’t also the best advanced technology, as it slowly poisoned the air around it, so if the world could use technology based on magic, they usually did so. We also only had one year of economics, so while I had a rough understanding of why every world didn't have access to all the advanced technologies, in reality, I wasn’t quite sure why that was.

One thing I did know, these vehicles will allow me to get faster to my end destination. Every world had a name, and the one I wanted to go through was named the Three Moons. It was a huge world that actually had three moons that you could go to and weren’t just illusionary images the shards made like almost every moon and sun was.

It took over two hours to reach my next destination. It was a huge portal station with more portals than I could see. Following the signs, I reached the one labelled 8C. Once again, I showed my ticket, but this time I needed to wait about 10 minutes before I could step through.

Here there weren't any of those self-propelled vehicles like buses, but there was a large wagon that had many seats and were pulled by some large-looking horse-like creatures I wasn’t familiar with. Once again, the next ticket I showed got me passage, and about 30 minutes later I was at what was called a train station.

Here I needed to run as the time on the clocks in this world was quite close to the one on my ticket. Fortunately, it seems that I made it with only a few minutes to spare before the train started to move. From the outside, it looked like a huge metal monstrosity, and the whistle it blew when it started to move was quite loud.

It would be a longer journey of about five hours; at least that’s what my ticket said. After about two hours I changed my mind about the annoying sound the train made as it moved on two metal strips that were on the ground. I wondered what they were called. Anyway, the sound turned pleasant, and I kind of wanted to doze off, but I stopped myself from doing that, as falling asleep would be a huge mistake.

I still had a strict schedule to keep, and while this world seemed a lot more pleasant than the one before, I still didn’t want to be stuck on it. While a world so big should have some adventure centers, they were nothing compared to the regional capital of the Adventurers Guild in the Three Moons world.

The next couple of portals were a lot easier to travel through, as I didn’t need to take any extra transportation to get to the portals. When I reached the last portal, holding the last ticket I had gotten, I was in a long line with a lot of other people who looked like they had just turned sixteen.

What I didn’t like were their eager faces. Did they not know the chances of their survival? There were fortunately a few ones that looked as serious as I suspected my own face looked like.

Whatever device they used to power this portal must've been a strong one, because the line moved quite fast, and it seems like every few seconds another person could go through. Then it was my turn. I showed my ticket, and I was basically pushed through the portal as they wanted to keep the line moving.

When I stepped onto the world of the Three Moons, immediately I was pushed forward so I would clear the portal for others to come behind me. Immediately, what hit me was the noise of this place. There seemed to be so many people talking. I followed other people as they moved forward, but I did look upwards to see one of the large moons.

We also had a moon that we could see, but it was fake. This one was supposed to be real, but honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference. My instincts wanted me to move away from the mass to get some breathing room and figure out where I needed to go, but I felt like that would be too dangerous in a place like this, and it would be better to stay with the crowds.

My belongings were stored in a way that it would be hard for anyone to steal them, I even had a decoy coin purse. Most likely, I didn’t feel every attempt to try to get the coins inside of it, but I did manage to feel it a few times.

To open my backpack, they would need to unhook a latch that was pressed against my back. I was also holding a hand on my sword so no one could take it from me. Other than that, I really didn’t have anything else worth stealing.

Still, being around so many people was nerve-wracking. Just the fact that someone could decide to slip a knife into my throat and I couldn’t do anything about it was something I needed to stop thinking about, so instead, I tried to concentrate on figuring out where I needed to go.

That seemed easy enough, as I just needed to follow almost everyone else as they headed towards the section of the town completely dedicated to the Adventurers Guild.

During the journey, I learned from multiple conversations that this place wasn’t actually the headquarters, just the regional office for this world. Apparently, the real headquarters was the size of a few cities. That sounded crazy. I wondered if that city would be larger than my whole home shard.

I don’t know exactly how long, but eventually, I was standing in front of a place that looked kind of like the first ticket office where I got all the tickets for my journey. Once again, I gave my thumbprint.

"Oh wow, you made it here in under 24 hours even if it was close. Well, thank you for not wasting the guild's money. As a reward, you have three more days to rest up in your assigned accommodations before you must start your training. Here's all the stuff you need to know. Good luck. Next!"

She yelled ‘Next’ quite loudly, but I had my large welcoming packet with all kinds of pamphlets and some bound stacks of paper. I even had a key. It didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to go to one of the dormitories, and it seems like I was on the fourth floor. The room wasn't bigger than the room I had back on the farm, but it was warm and the bed was quite soft, so I immediately fell asleep after I locked and barred the door.