A wild gale scraped the ugly gash on Zayn's forearm. That did not catch his attention; his gaze was locked on the swaying steel fork in his hand. It was mangled like a broken arm, and one solid blow would snap it in two, he was afraid.
He scanned the surroundings. After the last level up, the red fog covering his peripherals had cleared up. Suddenly, he could really see the world—like a nearsighted man given a pair of glasses.
Most of the forest was riddled with the overgrown marshes of grass and swamp. The towering trees scattered across them, covered in white, pitted barks that were seemingly as old as time.
If Zayn were to be honest, the scenery was quite beautiful—exquisite, even. Still, something about the quiet rustling of leaves gave him the creeps. Perhaps because it looked completely untouched by the living.
An overgrowth of nature.
He took cover among the trees again, trying to calm his sluggish nerves that were still recovering from the fall. A shifting system notification flashed, giving him a new headache.
He paused, picturing himself being chased around by a group of colossal humanoid monsters.
He looked through the objectives. Stone golems, those he could deal with. They weren’t all that difficult, at least not the two he had met. The one he had crushed was apparently level fifteen; he'd might have to run from that.
Whatever the stone turtles were, it was safe to assume that they were stronger than the golems. As for the stone ape and the dungeon boss, they shouldn't just be foraging around. He
He was a bit annoyed at the barrage of objectives, though. It was like being assigned to an unrelated workload at the office, and you couldn’t just say no; that practically meant forfeiting the job. An unwritten rule that everyone supposedly knew. Everyone except him.
He scoffed. At least the warnings here were clear and legible. What would a title like that mean in Eledra? No good if the system itself was warning him. He had zero thoughts of running away, anyway.
“Status.”
Zayn H. King, Level - 5
Race: Human (Normal)
Class: Available at lv10
Affiliation: Human(Earth)
Path: None
He made sure he’d not get sneak attacked this time, hiding himself into a thicket of trees. He’d already experienced what [The Helldiver]
Falling down rewarded him with a title? An uncommon title at that. The effect was a bit underwhelming though, compared to something like [The Helldiver]
Then again, he had only gotten four free points so far—one each level up. In essence, this title alone was equivalent to three levels worth of points.
It all clicked—like the pieces of a puzzle. That’s where the healing came from. He had assumed killing monsters or leveling up did that. A bit of a bummer that level up didn’t just automatically heal him, like those games.
Even then, this was absurdly lucky. All of his luck seemed to have accumulated and worked overtime—to make sure he survived. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
The last time he had gotten this lucky, he had lost everything right after.
He nodded in agreement. It took a special kind of cockroach to survive all that—one like him.
For a while, he fell into a quiet contemplation. The whole title system was broken. Someone with ten titles could probably smack someone with five, despite being at the same level. And this disparity would only snowball from there on.
Borus wasn’t kidding when he said that the titles were the lifeblood.
A faint bite pulled him out of his thoughts. He stared at his forearm. There, a faint covering had formed over his skin—like the thinnest veil. He could feel the flesh squirming and settling down underneath.
Recovering from that cut would’ve taken a couple weeks, several unnecessary antibacterial courses, and an unreasonable medical bill if that was on earth. Here, he might heal back to full within one day; less if he could level up again.
He closed his eyes, leaning on the tree. Waves of sunlight bathed his skin, some peeking through his eyelids. If everything was not so spooky, this wouldn’t be the worst place to go for a vacation.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had a proper one. Perhaps a decade ago? When he was still at home. When everything was alright.
He brought out his wallet. A hazel-eyed young woman sat in the photo, carrying a baby Leah—who looked like a grumpy cat. He forgot why, but it always made him crack up.
Leah was a clean freak. Their entire childhood, her room used to be uber clean—without a speck of dust. He’d occasionally mess it up just to rile her up. She still hated him for that.
He stared at the boy on the side—who was flashing a mischievous smile and tugging on his mother’s clothes. His mother’s face on the other had gotten all blurry. It was nearly a couple decades old of a picture after all…
He stood up. Not like he could do anything about them from here. The reality was, he was not strong enough to protect them. But if he got strong, then he could... perhaps protect them. Maybe this time...
Pushing all negative thoughts towards the back of his mind, he moved ahead. Before anything else, he needed to defeat this dungeon. Everything else would come later.
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It might not be the most balanced stat sheet ever, but had a feeling he was faring much better than most. Thanks to his titles.
Strength was self-explanatory. His constitution had already shown its effect: faster healing and better recovery from fatigue. Dexterity probably meant speed, reaction speed, hand precision. All that stuff. He couldn’t be too sure.
Fortitude was how many bitch slaps he could take before breaking down. And Intelligence was well... still bugged.
He knew what he needed right now.
“System, allot my free points to strength.” He said, deciding it was the best to increase his strength first. He was going to need it, evident from the last battle.
After a while of waiting, he got worried. Shouldn’t there be a flash or notification? He checked his stats again, just in case.
“
He tried a few more times. Asking the system what this was all about, he came to the same conclusion as before.
This system was bugged.
He surveyed the area again, looking for any hidden threat. The entire forest had quietened down—other than the faint rustling of leaves.
He tried to pull the fork in anger, only to freeze. As if something really strong had bitten down on it. Immediately after, he felt the same pull on his shoulder. On the chain that was wrapped around his shoulder.
He stared at the ground, watching in aghast as the fork got dragged by something under the ground. A slow, vice pull—inch by inch. Madness gripped his heart. He roared and tried to drag it back.
Like a death grip, it refused to forgo even one centimeter. His brain froze in helplessness. Time slowed and prisoned his thoughts as the fork got dragged down. The pull on the chain also got stronger.
A warning rang deep in his soul.
He did not know what was under the ground, but it was not something he could even hope to beat. He could feel the same grab still tugging on the chain as well. Still, it was weaker. Bearable.
He ran up to one of the trees in defiance, climbing up as far as he could. He wouldn’t allow the chain to meet the same fate.
To his surprise, that seemed to have been the correct choice. The more he climbed, the weaker the pull got—the way a magnet worked. He kept climbing until the pull was too weak to feel. Eventually, he felt nothing.
After hanging on for what felt like eternity, he climbed down towards the ground. The force that had been pulling vanished. But setting his feet down on the ground, he had a newfound apprehension for the forest in front of him.
***Nova Rain***
Nova Rain stood alone in a vast white chamber, feeling the strain in her mana circuits. A metallic block hovered five meters away from her, gleaming in an obnoxious shade of gold—flawless, except for the tiny, perfectly circular hole at its center, less than a millimeter wide. Even that was writhing, slowly collapsing down on itself.
All of these overseers were so goddamn incompetent. Why couldn't they just get something white? Why'd it have to be ?
It must have been her brother pulling strings; Nova was certain of it. The only thing that annoyed her more than him was whenever things were out of order. And he knew of that(of course), always using it against her.
Nova breathed in, then out, ignoring the tingling veins in her forehead. . She really shouldn’t have been goaded into this. She was better than that. It wouldn’t even grant her a title worth anything—at her level. But now that she’d come this far, a compulsion spoke within her, whispering that she should just get it over with.
It shouldn’t take long…
She sighed. Her newest skill, [Analyze]
Not even her seemingly brother.
She gritted her teeth. One month of the seventeenth year of her life would be wasted…on a title she didn’t even need. That manipulative bastard. If he hadn't provoked her in front of the entire clan…
Still, [Analyze]
The fact it had access to her thoughts made her skin crawl. And there was no way to get rid of it. She’d tried. Sentient relics were one thing. Sentient skills were unheard of. And if anyone learned of it, it wouldn’t be just her in danger.
Ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach, she scoured the mana in her circuit. The last of them trickled through her veins, pooling together for one final attempt. After that, she’d have to let her mana reserves replenish naturally.
Another dumb rule she’d agreed to for some reason.
[Elemental condensation].
Mana rushed out of her pores, thickening the air with vapor. Droplets of water collided and collapsed into each other—merging into a single, shimmering drop.
[Scorched earth]. [Metallic reinforcement].
Everything around the drop distorted—sound, air, even light. She gritted her teeth and pushed the drop forward like a cannon. Crackling, it tore into the hovering golden cube like a hot knife through butter.
It slowed the deeper it went. Nova bit her lips. Her dried reserves scraped against her circuits. Her heart beat erratically. Her eyes popped as she stared at the golden cube.
Then, the droplet collapsed—vanishing into the air.
Failure.
Again. She'd failed again.
She dropped to the cold, hard floor—sprawled on all fours. The golden cube loomed in her vision. The tiny, incomplete, squirming hole taunted her. She tried to look away. She couldn’t.
Why’d she have to fail ?
“That wasn’t a bad attempt,” a voice spoke in praise. Was he pitying her? She didn’t need pity.
“Are all the overseers as nosy as you?”
“Well, I am supposed to check, aren’t I?” The voice chuckled. “And you are the one who asked me to inform you if anything came up.”
She waited a moment for the reply but the overseer remained silent. She frowned. Since he’d come himself, he wouldn’t leave without telling her, right?
“Your brother Aman is spending a lot of Arax into the newly integrated worlds,” the man spoke at last.
“Why?” She blurted out. “Why would he put money in the baby races?”
The new races were getting integrated mid-game after incident. No matter how she looked at it, that was a losing bet to make.
The overseer didn’t answer, leaving as quickly as he had come. The recent integration of systems…The whole thing reeked of weird,
“System, connect to Astral.”
She ignored the blue lines of text, quickly shuffling through the dashboard.
Monthly Benefactor leaderboard.
- Undisclosed
- Abaradadayana.
- Undisclosed…
- Abaradadayana.
…
76. Aman Rain
There he was. Aman Rain. Even that name annoyed her. But she knew her brother. Every single step he took was intentional.
At a minimum, a position like that meant he'd spent millions of Arax. More than her current net worth. Her mind raced. Aman never made a losing investment. Why was he pouring resources into the baby races that were likely to fail?
Whatever was happening, she had to know. She couldn’t just let him do whatever he wanted. Nova hopped into one of the new channels. Immediately, glowing system notifications flooded her vision.
She had wasted money too, once, back when she was nine. It had been all of her pocket money. Needless to say, she'd lost all of it. Most of these people were clueless, spending their Arax on food and homes and trying to danger.
Hmm? Stoneheaded… You’d have to be an idiot to get that.
She ignored it, continuing to scroll. This probably wasn’t the best way to figure out what her brother was up to. But it wasn’t like she had anything better to do while her mana replenished.
[Unsuccessful analysis…]
[Retrying…]
[Unsuccessful…]
That was surprising. She’d never seen it fail before. Watching it struggle was...faintly amusing.
[Gathering information…Essense hidden. Probability of the user having a skill, title, or spark that conceals their essence is 100%.]
[The probability of the user gaining a class and skills within 44 minutes of integration is 0.3%—Unlikely.]
[The probability of already possessing a spark is under 0.00001%—Very unlikely.]
[The probability of having a title that hides their essence is 99.6%—Extremely likely.]
[Option 1. The user ‘Zayn’ has a Mythical or higher grade title—Very unlikely]
She froze. A pesky baby race would never have someone who could get a mythical title. Especially not early.
[Option 2. The user ‘Zayn’ has a Legacy title—Likely]
[Analysis completed!]
A Legacy title? She scoffed. Not even she had that. Not even Aman. She scrolled back.
But what if? She couldn’t help but entertain the thought.