Grabbing Your Hand, Dragging you Away - Chapter Eleven

“Chosen Heroes! Scour these worlds as the champions of us, the gods!”When an unsuspecting class of thirty die in a mysterious incident, the benevolent gods take mercy and reincarnate them as Otherworldly Heroes.In a world of magic and swords, the Heroes are forced against hardships as they face off the monsters threatening the world, the evil forces lurking in the shadows, and even themselves and the other heroes. Secrets hidden in their pasts will surface and their skills, trust and love will be put to test as they will tackle their new home.The heroes will... Except this one.This hero is sleeping.

When people awaken, their class gets ranked.F means nothing.SS means everything.Nobody talks about SSS ranks, because they aren’t real. Well, they weren’t real until he became one.Lucen Ivara was fine with staying average. Keep his head down, take low-tier jobs, eat something hot once in a while. That was the plan.Then his system came online.It didn’t follow the rules.There were no guides. It seemed limitless. There weren’t any safety rails he could cling into.Just a blank interface and a quiet message floating in front of him.[You are the first.]Now Lucen is crafting spells no one’s seen before, hiding a class that could get him killed, and trying to scrape by in a city where dungeon breaks, guild politics, and hidden power plays are part of daily life.He’s not looking to be a hero.But with power like this, staying invisible might be the hardest thing to do..

Book I: Lost ThingsTristan Abrascal is a thief, one of many making their living under the perpetual twilight of the greatest city in all of Vesper. Quick wit and a contract with a capricious goddess have always kept him one step ahead, until one night he crosses a line by accident that burns all the bridges he had left. But not all is lost, as his mentor offers a way out of peril that turns out to be more than a simple escape.It is also an opportunity to get even with the infanzones, the nobles he’s lived under all his life, and it so happens that Tristan has a full ledger’s worth of scores to settle with them.Lady Angharad Tredegar has fled halfway across the world, leaving behind a ruin of a life: her family butchered by a ruthless enemy, their estate torched and their nobility revoked. Yet no matter how far she flees the blades of assassins follow, and she finds herself growing desperate for any protection. She has one relative left to call on, her estranged uncle, but she finds that the safety he offers comes at a cost.Angharad has sworn revenge, however, and her honour will allow for no compromise. She will do what she must to survive so that one day bloody vengeance can be visited upon her enemies.The paths of the two take them to the doorstep of the Watch, but for desperate souls like them enrolment is a lost cause. They will have to do it the hard way instead, by surviving the trials on the isle known as the Dominion of Lost Things.Where every year many go, and few return.Book II: Good TreasonsThe trials of the Dominion are over.The four survivors have become students of Scholomance, enrolling together as a cabal, yet even on those infamous grounds they soon learn none are beyond the reach of their pasts.Angharad Tredegar is returned to a semblance of the world she left behind, but finds her honor sorely tested by bargains offered - every bit as tempting as in the stories and even deadlier.Tristan Abrascal needs answers. Mysterious enemies keep trying to abduct him, his classroom does not exist and he’s now had several conversations with dead people. Worst of all, his carrots keep dying.Maryam Khaimov is going mad, which would worry her less if it were happening on schedule. More frightening yet is the possibility that she is not, and there truly is someone else going around wearing her face.Song Ren must forge the others into a functional unit, all the while fending off enemies on all sides: rival cabals, vengeful countrymen and the deluge of implacable foes her companions simply cannot seem to stop attracting.Failure is not an option, for Song must bring back honor to her family’s name whatever the cost: it is the only way to keep their disgrace from literally eating them all alive.And as the four chase shadows in Scholomance, in the distance looms the greater test awaiting them in the Asphodel Rectorate. Asphodel is a faded power, the rotten carcass of what it once was, but under that rot looms darker things - of which monsters might just be the least dangerous.Besides, is treason really such an evil when you have the best of reasons for it?

When Li Xianyu was 20 years old, he received his father’s inheritance, an 18-year-old great-grandmother who was incredibly beautiful.

Li Xianyu: “Great-Grandma, why are you so young?”

Great-Grandma: “That’s because I died when I was 18 years old.”