The tome unraveled into drifting shards of black and silver light, dissolving as they sank into his chest. Knowledge surged in...cold, violent, endless. Symbols he shouldn't understand rearranged themselves into instinct. The world darkened, or maybe it didn't; the shadows simply changed shape, responding to him like breath to lungs.
Something inside clicked. His interface shimmered, and where there had been emptiness, a single line now pulsed in gold.
A beginning.
He looked up at Andre and gave a slight, respectful nod. Then, his eyes, burning with a cold, predatory light, shifted. The Grove was done. The points were secured. His first skill was acquired.
And he still had two charges of [Super Upgrade] for the day.
The moment the last mote of shadowy light from the skill tome absorbed into his soul, Alvian's mind went into overdrive. He gave Andre a perfunctory nod of thanks, his attention already turned inward, focused on the divine engine of power that was his SSS-Rank talent.
The hunt was over. Now, it was time to forge the weapon.
He didn't hesitate for a single second.
'System,' he commanded in his mind, his focus absolute. 'Activate Super Upgrade on [Shadow Weave].'
A stark, red warning message immediately flashed across his vision, a system protocol hard-coded to prevent the impossible.
[WARNING! Target skill [Shadow Weave] is of Legendary-Rank. It possesses no higher grade and cannot be upgraded through conventional means.]
Alvian's lips curled into a cold, predatory smirk. 'Conventional' was a word for other people.
A second notification, this one burning with the golden authority of his unique talent, overrode the first.
[Ding! SSS-Rank Talent [Super Upgrade] authority invoked!]
[System limitations bypassed. Proceeding with forced upgrade.]
[Consuming one (1) daily charge… Upgrade successful!]
The skill in his interface shimmered, the text re-writing itself as raw power was forcibly injected into its code.
[Your skill [Shadow Weave (Legendary)] has been elevated to [Shadow Weave +1]!]
But he wasn't done.
'Again,' he commanded, the word a steel spike in his mind.
[Ding! Consuming one (1) daily charge… Upgrade successful!]
[Your skill [Shadow Weave +1] has been elevated to [Shadow Weave +2]!]
A strange clarity rolled through him, heavier than the first time he touched the skill...almost too heavy. The darkness around the DeathWood didn't behave like a cloak anymore. It clung to him, breathed with him, almost felt like borrowed limbs stitched to his own. He opened the skill window, pulse jumping in a rhythm he couldn't quite steady.
┏━━━━━[ Core Skill Updated ]━━━━━┓
│ Name: [Shadow Weave +2]
│ Rank: Legendary (Evolved)
│ Type: Active Skill
│
│ Description: By forcing the laws of shadow beyond their limits, you achieve a state of
│ perfect phantomhood. You are undetectable by any means. The state is not broken by
│ movement, spell-casting, or attacking.
│
│ ▷ New Effect: While active, you are considered a semi-ethereal entity. You gain a
│ passive [30% Physical and Magical Damage Immunity].
│ ▷ Enhancement: Duration increased from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
│ ▷ Enhancement: Cooldown reduced from 10 minutes to 3 minutes.
│
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Alvian's breath hitched. It was even more broken than he remembered. Two full minutes of perfect invisibility, coupled with damage immunity. It wasn't just a stealth skill anymore; it was an invincibility button with a three-minute cooldown. It was utterly, game-breakingly absurd.
Andre, who had been watching him, saw the flicker of fierce, triumphant light in Alvian's eyes. "You seem pleased," the old knight remarked. "That skill is a powerful tool for infiltration and escape. Use it wisely."
'Infiltration and escape?' Alvian thought with a humorless, internal chuckle. 'Old man, you have no idea. This isn't a tool. It's a license to commit genocide.'
"Thank you for the guidance, Examiner," Alvian said aloud, his expression returning to its usual flat calm. "I have what I need. I will now continue the exam."
Without another word, he turned and strode out of the clearing, leaving a baffled Andre standing alone. He had no time to waste. His exam score was already immense, likely putting him in the top echelons, but it wasn't enough. He needed more than points. He needed levels. He needed to feel the rush of power that had been denied to him his entire previous life.
He knew exactly where to go.
His destination was a place marked as a high-level death zone on the exam map: the Crystalvein Mines. In his past life, it took a full week for the first elite student guilds to even attempt to breach its entrance. The entire mine was filled with Level 10 Earth Golems.
┏━━━━━━━[ Monster Profile ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Name: Earth Golem
│ Level: 10
│ Type: Magical Construct
│
│ Description: A slow but immensely powerful magical automaton. Possesses
│ extremely high physical defense and its [Stomp] ability creates a damaging
│ area-of-effect shockwave. Its only weakness is the mana crystal core in its chest.
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
For any other Level 1 examinee, even a fully-partied one, facing a single Level 10 Earth Golem was suicide. Their defense was too high to be scratched by starting weapons, and a single stomp would instantly wipe out anyone caught in its radius.
Alvian reached the entrance to the mine in twenty minutes. It was a gaping maw in the side of a mountain, and just as he expected, a dozen or so other examinees were huddled near the entrance, peering into the darkness with a mixture of fear and greed.
"No way, man. I saw one. It's huge! At least ten feet tall," one of them whispered.
"The points for killing one must be insane, though," another mused. "But how? Our swords just bounce off their hide."
Alvian paid them no mind. He walked past the gawking crowd as if they didn't exist, stopping at the very edge of the mine's darkness. He took a deep breath, the scent of damp stone and ozone filling his lungs.
Then, he activated his skill.
"[Shadow Weave +2]."
The world went silent. The colors around him seemed to mute, and a profound sense of detachment washed over him. He felt his physical form dissolve into something intangible, a whisper in the dark. He was a ghost. A phantom.
He stepped into the mine.
The darkness was absolute, but for him, it was an ally. A few steps in, he saw it. A hulking silhouette of stone and crystal lumbered through a wide cavern, its heavy footsteps echoing off the walls. Its entire body glowed with a faint earthen light, illuminating the mana crystal in its chest, a brilliant blue gem that pulsed like a slow, steady heart.
The golem was a walking fortress. And Alvian was the unseen saboteur about to bring it down.
He flowed through the cavern, his movements utterly silent. The golem, completely oblivious to his presence, continued its patrol. Alvian circled around it, his eyes locked on the glowing core. His stats were still pathetic. His Strength was 1. He couldn't shatter the core with brute force. He needed precision.
He spotted a jagged, sharp piece of stone on the ground, a byproduct of the mining. It was no bigger than his hand, but its edge was like a crude knife. He picked it up.
He closed the distance until he was standing directly behind the lumbering giant. He took a centering breath, channeling the memories of a thousand desperate battles from his past life. He knew exactly where to strike. There was a hairline fracture in the golem's magical matrix, just to the upper left of the crystal's housing...an imperceptible flaw he only knew about from a forum post he'd read two years into the future.
He moved.
He darted forward, slipping under the golem's massive arm. He drove the sharp rock into the precise spot with all his might. It wasn't powerful but it was perfect. The rock slid into the hairline crack, bypassing the golem's formidable defense and striking the delicate matrix beneath.
"CRACK!"
The crack rang out...thin, sharp, almost like a wineglass snapping. The blue glow inside the golem sputtered, dimmed, thrashed. The giant froze mid-step, its whole frame quivering as if something important had just come loose. It lifted its arms in a wordless scream, more vibration than sound. Then the body gave up. Stone sagged, folded, broke apart. A slow, heavy collapse. Dust everywhere.
Light burst across his vision...notifications pouring in so fast it felt like someone had opened a floodgate inside his skull.
[Ding! You have slain a Level 10 Earth Golem!]
[You have achieved a 'Weak Point' critical kill! Experience Points multiplied by 200%!]
[You have slain a monster 9 levels higher than you! Experience Points multiplied by 900%!]
[You have gained 45,000 EXP!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
"BOOM!"
A wave of pure power washed through him. His body, once laughably weak, was flooded with strength. The fatigue in his muscles vanished, replaced by a vibrant energy.
He was Level 5. In a single kill.
┏━━━━━━━[ Profile Updated ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Name: Alvian
│ Class: Unbound
│ Level: 5 (+4)
│ Title: N/A
│ Unassigned Stat Points: 20
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
While others were grinding for hours to gain a single level, he had leaped four in an instant. This was the power he had dreamed of. This was the terrifying synergy of his knowledge and his talent.
He didn't stop to celebrate. The two-minute duration on [Shadow Weave +2] was still ticking.
He saw another golem in the distance. And another. The cavern was filled with them. They were not monsters. They were walking, breathing treasure chests of experience points, and he was the only one with the key.
He became a whirlwind of unseen death. A phantom assassin reaping a harvest of stone and light. He flitted from one golem to the next, his movements a blur.
Stab. Crack. Crumble.
[You have slain a Level 10 Earth Golem! +45,000 EXP!]
[You have leveled up!]
Stab. Crack. Crumble.
[You have slain a Level 10 Earth Golem! +45,000 EXP!]
[You have leveled up!]
Level 6. Level 7.