I didn't sleep. I lay on my mattress in the dark, the spectral blue light of the System interface my only companion, and stared at the notifications that represented the most terrifying and exhilarating ten minutes of my life. The phantom stench of burned chitin still clung to the inside of my nose.
I had killed a living creature. A monstrous one, to be sure, but it had been alive, and now it was a pile of ash on a cellar floor because of me. There was no revulsion, no guilt, not really. There was only a cold, hard knot of pragmatism in my gut. It had tried to kill me, so I killed it first. This world, this System, had rules, and I was beginning to understand that "survival of the fittest" was rule number one.
The exhaustion was a physical weight, a deep ache in my bones, but my mind was electric. I had faced a real threat and won. I had proven that my training, my reckless gambles, and my endless dishwashing were actually paying off.
With trembling fingers, I mentally navigated to my status screen. It was time to take stock. Here are my stats *before* allocating my new points and leveling up.
[ CHARACTERSTATUS ]
Name: Maddox Olivia Morgan
Level: 3
Title: Novice Dishwasher
[ ATTRIBUTES 」
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 8
Vitality:.8
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 9
Health: 80/80
Stamina: 80/80
Mana: 110/110
Unspent Attribute Points: 0
Unspent Skill Points: 0
The 125 XP from the Cellar Crawler had pushed me over the edge. The system re-presented the level-up notification for my confirmation.
[You have reached Level 4!]
[You have gained 5 Attribute Points and 1 Skill Point.]
Five points. A treasure trove. My first instinct was to dump them all into Intelligence to maximize my mana pool, my primary weapon. But the frantic scramble away from the Crawler's charge was a stark reminder of my physical vulnerability. A little more Dexterity could mean the difference between dodging and getting skewered. A little more Vitality could mean surviving a hit that would otherwise kill me.
But magic was my path. My advantage. In this world, I was a mage, a glass cannon. My best defense was a devastating offense. I couldn't afford to be a jack-of-all-trades. I had to specialize.
*All in on the boom* I decided.
I allocated 3 points to Intelligence and 2 to Wisdom, maintaining the same ratio as before. The effect was a palpable surge of energy. The budding headache from my Mana Depletion Sickness receded slightly, and the well of power within me felt noticeably deeper and cleaner.
Next, the skill point. I opened my Fire skill tree. [Firebolt] was there, along with the still-locked higher-tier skills. But I also had access to the Tier 1 skills I'd initially skipped.
[SenseHeat] (Passive): Your connection to the Fire element allows you to passively sense sources of significant heat within a small radius.
Cost: 1 Skill Point.
Prerequisites: None.
Getting ambushed in the pitch-black by a monster had been a terrifying lesson in situational awareness. [SenseHeat] wasn't a flashy attack spell, but it was a tool that could prevent me from ever being surprised like that again. In the cold, dark cellar, a living creature would glow like a beacon to this sense. It was the perfect skill for a dungeon-delving mage. I selected it immediately.
[ Skill Learned: [Sense Heat]! A new sensory pathway has been opened.]
I felt a strange new sensation, a faint tingling at the edge of my perception. It was like a background hum that had always been there, but I was only just now able to hear it. I could faintly 'feel' the warmth of my own body, the residual heat in the stone wall from my firebolt practice. It was subtle, but it was there.
Finally, I checked my inventory. The System had automatically stored my loot.
[ INVENTORY ]
[CrawlerChitinFragment] x2
[CrawlerMandible] x1
I used [Observe] on the items.
[CrawlerChitinFragment]
Type: Crafting Material
Quality: Common
Description:A shard of the durable carapace from a Cellar Crawler. It is lightweight but surprisingly tough. Can be used in armor crafting or ground into a powder for alchemical reagents.
[CrawlerMandible]
Type: Crafting Material
Quality: Common
Description: The sharp, serrated mandible of a Cellar Crawler. It retains its edge well. Can be fashioned into a crude dagger or used as a component in potion-making that requires a cutting agent.
Crafting. Alchemy. The System was deeper than I thought. These weren't just monster trophies... They were resources. I had no idea how to craft or make potions, but I tucked the knowledge away. For now, they were proof of my victory.
With my new power allocated and my loot assessed, I finally allowed the bone-deep exhaustion to claim me.
***
The next morning, I felt like I'd been run over by a cart. The Mana Depletion Sickness was back with a vengeance, a dull, throbbing ache that made the very act of thinking feel like wading through mud. But beneath the fatigue, there was a new current of strength. My updated stats were a tangible thing, a hum of potential under my skin.
[ CHARACTERSTATUS]
Name: Maddox Olivia Morgan
Level: 4
Title: Novice Dishwasher
[ ATTRIBUTES ]
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 8
Vitality: 8
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 11
Health: 80/80
Stamina: 80/80
Mana: 140/140 (Currently Regenerating: 28/140)
Unspent Attribute Points: 0
Unspent Skill Points: 0
The XP requirement for the next level had doubled. The grind was getting real.
I trudged downstairs, expecting the usual routine. But today was different. The moment I stepped into the main tavern room, Elara looked up from behind the bar. Her face was set in a hard, unreadable expression.
"Maddox. A word." Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the morning bustle like a knife.
Leo, who was wiping down tables, froze and suddenly found the floor intensely interesting. Borin, who was lumbering through with a side of beef over his shoulder, actually paused for a second before continuing into the kitchen. An order from Elara was not to be ignored.
My stomach twisted. This was it. She knew.
I walked over to the bar, my hands feeling clammy. "Good morning, Elara."
She didn't return the greeting. She just stared at me, her dark eyes seeming to strip away all my pretenses. "You were in the cellar for nearly two hours last night."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact.
"I, uh, I got a little turned around," I stammered, my prepared excuses suddenly sounding flimsy and pathetic. "It's bigger than I thought."
"It is," she agreed, her voice dangerously calm. "It's also made of stone. Stone that doesn't usually smell like a blacksmith's forge after a long day."
My blood ran cold. The ozone. The burning. I had been so focused on the visual evidence, I hadn't considered the smell.
"And this morning..." she continued, leaning forward slightly, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "I went down to check the inventory. There are scorch marks on my walls, girl. And a patch of floor near the old tunnels is covered in a fine, black ash that smells absolutely foul."
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I was caught. Utterly and completely caught. My secret life as a magical pyromaniac was about to come to an abrupt end. I was going to be fired, thrown out, maybe even reported to the city guard.
I braced for the inevitable shouting, the accusation. But it didn't come. Elara just watched me, her expression a complex mixture of anger, curiosity, and something else I couldn't quite place.
"I don't know what you are," she said finally, her voice low and intense. "You show up out of nowhere, half-starved, with the softest hands I've ever seen. You work like a machine, you get stronger every day, and now you're down in my cellar making scorch marks and foul-smelling ash."
She paused, holding my gaze. "You're an elementalist, aren't you? A fire-user. Untrained, by the looks of it."
I couldn't deny it. The evidence was overwhelming. I gave a single, jerky nod, my throat too tight to speak.
Elara leaned back, a long sigh escaping her lips. It wasn't a sigh of anger, but of weary resignation. "By the stones," she muttered, rubbing her temples. "Of course. Another one."
Another one?
"Look at me, girl," she commanded. I forced my eyes up to meet hers. "I run a business. A quiet, respectable business, most days. I don't need the city guard sniffing around because one of my staff decided to practice her pyromancy next to a hundred kegs of highly flammable ale. Do you understand the kind of trouble you could bring down on this place? On me?"
"I… I'm sorry," I whispered, the words feeling inadequate. "I was careful. I stayed away from the kegs. I just needed a place to… practice."
"Practice," she scoffed, but there was less heat in it now. "What you were doing down there sounded less like practice and more like a small war. And don't think I didn't notice that you carried those two kegs up yesterday like they were sacks of feathers. You're getting stronger, and not from washing pots."
She fell silent for a long moment, studying my face. I felt like a bug under a microscope. I was completely at her mercy.
"There are things in the deep tunnels," she said, her voice dropping again. "Things best left alone. Skittering things. I've lost more than a few cats to those tunnels over the years. You're lucky that whatever you were fighting didn't decide to fight back harder."
So she knew about the Crawlers. Or at least, she suspected. This woman missed nothing.
"Here are the new rules," she said, her voice turning hard as iron. "One: You will never, ever use your… talents… anywhere in the main building again. Not the kitchen, not the attic, nowhere. Clear?"
I nodded vigorously. "Crystal."
"Two: The cellar is my property. If you go down there to 'practice,' you do so on your own time, not while you're supposed to be fetching ale. And if you damage anything, a wall, a support beam, anything, I will take it out of your hide, not just your pay."
I nodded again, a sliver of hope blooming in my chest. She wasn't kicking me out.
"And three," she said, leaning in so close I could see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes. "Whatever you are, whatever you're doing, you keep it to yourself. You don't bring trouble to my door. You continue to wash the dishes, you do your job, and you don't give me a single reason to regret not turning you over to the Mages' Guild for unlicensed use of elemental powers."
The Mages' Guild. Unlicensed use. The words sent a chill down my spine. Of course this world had regulations. I had been so caught up in my own power fantasy, I hadn't even considered the legal ramifications.
"I understand," I said, my voice firm with gratitude and relief. "Thank you, Elara. You won't regret it."
"I probably will," she grunted, straightening up. "Now get to the kitchen. That mountain of pots isn't going to scrub itself."
As I walked away on shaky legs, I felt like I had just survived a battle far more dangerous than the one with the Crawler. I had faced the judgment of my landlady, and somehow, I had passed. I had a powerful, and very perceptive, new secret-keeper.
The rest of the day was a blur of work. Borin was even grumpier than usual, which I suspected was his way of reacting to the tension he'd felt in the air. But for the first time, the endless scrubbing didn't feel like a chore. It was my cover. My mundane, greasy, perfect alibi. It was the time I used to let my mana regenerate, to plan my next trip into the dark.
Because Elara hadn't forbidden me from going into the cellar. She had just set the terms.
That night, after my shift, I didn't go straight to my room. I grabbed the lantern and the key. I was still tired, my mana pool only about three-quarters full, but I couldn't wait. I had to know.
Descending into the cellar felt different. It was no longer just a training ground. It was my dungeon. My territory.
I activated [SenseHeat] the world shifted. Beyond the visual input of the lantern light, I now had another layer of perception. I could feel the cold of the stones as a deep, uniform blue in my mind's eye. The lantern was a brilliant, blazing sun.
And in the tunnel where I had fought the Crawler, there were other lights.
They were small, faint flickers of warmth. Not the bright, active heat of a living creature, but a dull, residual glow. I moved toward the tunnel, lantern held high. My new sense led me down the dark passage, further than I had gone before.
The tunnel opened into a small, self-contained cavern. And in the center of it, my heat sense flared. It was a nest. A disgusting, pulsating mound of mud and secreted slime, about four feet across. And nestled within it were dozens of leathery, fist-sized eggs, each glowing with a faint, internal heat.
This was the source. This was why the Crawlers were here.
As I stared at the nest, my heat sense picked up something else. Two distinct, moving signatures of warmth at the far end of the cavern, tucked away in the shadows. They were brighter than the eggs, cooler than my lantern, the unmistakable signature of living things.
I focused my [Observe] skill.
[CellarCrawler] - Level 2
Status: Guarding
[CellarCrawler] - Level 3
Status: Guarding
Two of them. And one was a higher level than the one I had fought. It would be stronger, faster, tougher.
My hand instinctively began to gather mana for a [Firebolt]. But I stopped myself. Attacking now would be foolish. I was tired, my mana wasn't full, and I was outnumbered. This wasn't a fight to stumble into. This was an encounter to be planned.
I had a new quest, one not given by the System, but by circumstance. Objective: Eradicate the nest.
I backed away slowly, my eyes locked on the two heat signatures in the darkness. They hadn't noticed me yet. I retreated from the tunnel, my heart pounding with a hunter's thrill, not a victim's fear.
Back in the main cellar, I looked at the scorch marks on the wall, the faint traces of ash on the floor. This place was more than just my training ground. It was my responsibility. Elara had given me a chance. It was time to prove I was worth it, by taking out the trash.