Chronos flexed his back muscles causing his armor to lock the axes in place and spun while taking out his dagger, he plunged the dagger into the goblin knights' eye swiftly ending its life.
"That's one less enemy, now there's just you left."
He glared at the dark lord wondering how he would survive this time. Seconds passed as the flames on its body flared up more, then it lurched forward.
Thwack.
And got hit with a tree?
No, looking up Chronos realized it was a staff as large as a tree. A massive hand descended and grabbed the dark lord by the back of its throat.
"Oh no you don't, I have had enough of you dark beasts causing problems. Now disappear so I can have the boar as my pet." Thwack.
A giant, 10 meters tall, was pinning down the dark lord and beating it over the head with its staff. Sensing the energy given off by it this giant was above the fifth rank, but Chronos couldn't tell exactly how strong it was.
After struggling for a minute, the dark lord fell and slowly dissipated, following which the giant took out some plants and cast a spell that burned them to ash. Watching the ash float off on the wind the giant nodded in satisfaction.
Turning to face him Chronos took a good look at the giant, he had sandy brown hair braided with what looked like tusks from a boar or elephant. His skin looked like warm granite but was starkly contrasted by pale-blue streaks like what you could find in glaciers.
In his hand was a staff that looked like it was made from a dwarf birch that grew around Chronos' home, but it was much larger than any birch he had seen. The top was adorned with mammoth tusks in a conical shape and held an amber crystal of some kind. It was faintly glowing, but Chronos had no idea what that meant.
He was dressed in furs that Chronos couldn't identify, and had several necklaces and charms that marked him as a shaman.
Chronos just hoped that he was friendly as there was no chance of fighting or escaping from a being this powerful. Even the weakest charm he was wearing was at the fifth rank!
"Hello there, you really put up an impressive fight in the void. I quite enjoyed it, but where are my manners. I am Hrólmir Snowmane, Jotun shaman of the snow deserts, it is a pleasure to meet you and your friends." Hrólmir introduced himself with a low bow before shrinking to be just 3 meters tall.
"It will be much easier to speak at this size." He muttered while waiting for Chronos to introduce himself.
Glancing behind himself Chronos saw that his friends were with him standing off to the side, but the paladins of the second order were all missing. They were holding their weapons and looked like they weren't sure if they should run or not.
"Hello, I'm Chronos, right now I am forbidden from using my family name. The gentleman trying to blend in with the shadows is Gregory, the small lady next to him is Sariah, and the lady looking like she might hit you is Lyla. If I may, I would like to know how you knew what was going on in the void?" Chronos introduced all of them in broken giant tongue to prevent misunderstandings
Smiling Hrólmir stated, "There's no need to try and speak my language, I understand common just fine and you are not very good at speaking Kaltharic. As for how I saw you, once you reach my level of power there is not much that can hide from you. Unfortunately, I'm not able to interfere with the internal void until it spreads on the surface of the world."
"That place was inside the world?" Lyla interrupted.
"It is, but you shouldn't ask more about it. You are still too weak to handle those matters."
He kept curiously looking at Chronos, but they had another question for him.
"You called yourself a Jotun? Is that a type of giant?"
Sighing Hrólmir answered, "Yes but unlike most giant races my species does not focus on brute strength but instead focus on the power of spirits and dreams. This makes us outcasts amongst giants and since most giant species are just as violent as they are strong my kind are generally outcasts everywhere else."
Looking more closely at Chronos he said, "Now let me take a look at you child of the Beklaedning clan. Some of those crystal shards got inside your body and I want to see what changes they brought about. And don't change forms, we don't know if they will hurt your weaker forms yet."
Unable to refuse him Chronos remained in his werewolf form and stood there as Hrólmir took out several bowls with hand paints inside them. He opened them and slowly dipped his fingers in them, drawing symbols on Chronos' body one by one.
A few of the symbols glowed but most remained dark, frowning a little Hrólmir drew three more symbols, which glowed brightly, then waved his staff around in front of him coming to a stop above Chronos' head.
Spirits gathered around the amber on the staff before slowly circling Chronos, they seemed unwilling to touch him but had no problems being around him.
Smiling Hrólmir nodded, then cast a cleaning spell and all of the hand paints went back to their bowls which closed with a snap.
"Is everything alright with Chronos?" Lyla asked with a worried tone.
"Hm, oh yes he is just fine, better than fine even. The crystals inside the void seem to be a portion of world energy that has crystalized. Now world energy by its very nature can be used by almost any creature making it fairly harmless but this is the first time I had seen a crystallized form of it. It's quite enlightening." Hrólmir hummed and nodded to himself, very happy with what he had found.
"Isn't it a problem for the energy to be taken from the world?"
Chronos asked as he assumed it was fine to move now.
"No, the world produces this energy to help mortals grow stronger. Once you are stronger it then siphons off small amounts of your energy to grow the world. It is a symbiotic relationship, in your and your friends case it seems the crystalized energy has boosted your stats to the maximum for your rank. Now if you want to maintain max stats you will have to work to keep up your strength but that's nothing new for mortals."
From the way he spoke Chronos got the feeling that Hrólmir might not be mortal himself. Perhaps a spirit? Or one of those wandering cultivators written about in myths.
And what was this stat thing he referred to? It clearly had something to do with strength, but Chronos had never heard of it before.
Seeing Chronos' confused expression Hrólmir had a sudden idea.
"You know I have travelled across several worlds and one of those worlds had invented a wonderful thing for their games that could help all of you become much stronger, it was called a"System ". If you would give me permission, I could use the remaining world crystal to give all of you access to a "System" I have created."
Thinking about the reemergence of the dark beasts they knew that they would need all of the help that they could get, but they didn't want to just accept something they didn't understand.
Looking at each other, they agreed on the condition of asking more questions first, Chronos would be their spokesman.
"What exactly will this "Systim" do?"
"It is pronounced "System" and it will quantify your physical and spiritual strength into numbers as well as analyze all of the techniques and magic that you know then give you an explanation of them. It may even tell you information that you don't know about yourselves or your methods. In addition to these it will also give you access to my skill library, uh that is all of the techniques and magics that I know.
Systems are used to assist in the growth of mortals, but they are only used in games at the moment. Now I won't lie to you. I also gain some power from those who use my system, but it will not harm anyone who uses it in any way. It will also collect any techniques or magics that are not in my skill library and add them to it for others to access.
I should also tell you that your group will be the first testers of my system so I would greatly appreciate any insight into improvements for my system." Hrólmir didn't want any misunderstandings between them, so he didn't mind taking the time to go into every detail he thought was relevant and answer any of their questions.