The Place Where Everything Begins

When Jeremy saw the System's warning notifications, he had to admit that he was taken aback significantly.

After all, it was rare... very rare that the renowned System would give out such a warning towards an individual.

To be honest, most beings on Ortus knew how unkind the System was as it always treated all things equally and impartially.

No matter when or where, the System would never reach its hands out to interfere with the Ortus' related affairs 'if' the thing or event had happened 'naturally' and progress in the ways that it should be.

In this case, it simply meant the reason why the System had decided to interfere was that it had judged this hard-difficulty trial to be too unfair for the contestant from Earth.

First of all, the System had changed the objective from three wins to two wins for a contestant to pass the trial and eventually leave this place.

Secondly, it realized the fourth battle was too hard for an Earthling to pass, and somehow an Earthling, Jeremy chose not to be taken out of this place, so the System had no choice but to interfere again this time.

Well, considering the System had already reached out its old lazy ass to help an individual from predicaments two times consecutively, it only signified that the cupid had only designed this hard-difficulty trial roughly and half-heartedly.

To be honest, who could blame the half-baked cupid anyway?

In the first place, no sane Earthling would come challenging the normal-difficulty trial, let alone the hard one, which Jeremy was in right now.

After standing still for a few seconds, Jeremy finally came back to his senses...

'How hard will it be for the System to interfere like this?' Jeremy thought with a profound-looking frown on his forehead.

'Should I just change my mind and leave this place once and for all?'

'Well...'

'That will never happen, not after I turn this trial upside down first. I know all too well that the System is fair, so the rewards should be fair too. Hehehe...'

At last, Jeremy smiled and chuckled mysteriously at the thought of the future mountain load of rewards.

It appeared that there were no such words as 'defeat' or 'give up' lingering within the former sage's mind at all.

He was just that confident in his own battling power and strength...

'If I will have to fight with a powerful opponent, then I better do it full-heartedly...'

Having thought so, Jeremy chose the 'No' option like the last time, causing the interface to disappear from his sight.

Then Jeremy turned in a particular direction before walking there slowly...

*Flip-flop*

*Flip-flop*

Right now, Jeremy's footstep noises resounded out within the 'quiet' arena, making it look like he was staying inside this oval amphitheater alone with no audience or bystander or whatever...

'Those human audiences will only open their mouths when a battle commences, huh. They are idiots or what?' Jeremy thought heedlessly while sauntering towards his destination.

Not long after, he finally arrived before the half-elemental creature's cold corpse. Afterward, Jeremy crouched down to the ground and touched the dead Goron's arm...

Then he thought inwardly,

'Analyze' 

After willing his mind to activate the skill, a transparent window showed up in front of him shortly after...

...

Race: Goron (Artificial Species - Special-Rank Organism)

Alignment: Earth Element (Unknown Hierarchy)

Status: Dead — Assumed to be dead from excessive damages on many internal organs caused by an explosion in the stomach area.

Description: A young special-rank organism specialized in Earth element; if given enough time to absorb the elemental energy in the atmosphere, it can evolve further to increase the hierarchy rankings among its peers.

...

When Jeremy saw the information regarding the young Goron earlier, he raised one eyebrow in wonder.

Then Jeremy raised his left palm to scratch his chin, making himself look like he was in deep thought...

Well, that couldn't be more right, as Jeremy was indeed within a deep thought,

'Now, come to think about it, those half-elemental creatures have their own hierarchy rankings to determine the social standings and power levels. As for how to grow in the hierarchy...'

'Hmm... It is not just absorbing the elemental energy in the atmosphere for sure, there should be something else that comes into play here, but it looks like the needed information is still kept within my soul as I cannot recall it at all.'

'Wait... Then the skill doesn't give me all the information I need... Hehh... It seems like the [Analyze] skill with 'basic' level can only give out this half-ass and not-so-accurate information, huh.'

'That also means I shouldn't depend solely on this skill when I do experimentation or research... Even the items and creatures' information received from using the [Analyze] might not be one-hundred-percent precise... well... whatever... it is just a basic level anyway. I shouldn't expect too much from it.'

When Jeremy had initially been thinking about some miscellaneous information regarding the half-elemental races, he had surprisingly come to know that the information given by the [Analyze] skill was not that accurate, so he had to be careful regarding this skill.

Thus, Jeremy decided not to rely too much on the information received from the skill...

Shortly after, he shook his head slightly to throw away those unneeded thoughts from his head.

Afterward, Jeremy stood up from the crouching position before going back towards the arena's center area.

Then he sat on the same wooden chair brought out from the left glove's storage, intending to patiently sit there waiting for the upcoming 'tough' battle.

When Jeremy was sitting idly on the chair while taking a look around the arena to find something interesting, he had suddenly thought of something important,

'Oh right, I think it's time to take a look at my baby...'

That important thing was the so-called baby something of his...

After finishing his thought, the white inscription on the right glove's backhand suddenly shone in white light all of a sudden.

Bit by bit...

The white glow started extending upward and downward diagonally into a slim, long cylindrical shape.

Almost ten seconds later, the white light finally faded away, leaving behind a long wooden staff with a length of around 170 cm.

At this moment, Jeremy was looking at the staff's aesthetics with a fascinating expression. After all, he had created such a masterpiece of a staff within a mana-less world; he ought to feel somewhat attached to and proud of it.

At first glance, the staff looked very ordinary with a long brown wooden shaft as the main body, and its whole shaft was wrapped and coiled around by many brown-grey wooden vines.

The topmost of the staff situated a half-exposed spherical golden orb with a dashing appearance acting as the staff's core body. As a result of the additional golden globe on top of the wooden body, the staff's total weight became more than six kilograms.

Even if its outer appearance looked ordinary, it still exuded elegance from within, which was capable of catching any onlooker's attention easily.

All in all, the appropriate weight and elegant-looking appearance had made the staff fit perfectly with Jeremy's inhuman strength and aesthetic taste.

The wooden staff was undoubtedly Jeremy's hand-crafted staff, Forsaken Branch...

[A/N: This is how the Forsaken Branch looks like.]

After looking at the staff left and right as if looking at his own baby, Jeremy promptly activated the skill to inspect the staff's stats...

'Alanyze'

Simultaneously, a moderately big window containing the staff's specific information popped up in front of Jeremy....