Alex grunted, pulling himself out of the river’s stream as the sun barely rose in the sky.
It was little more than a creek really, where it ran shallow through the town’s southern outskirts, but it still reached up to his knees, wetting his pants where he’d rolled them up. He’d been bent over, his hands obscured beneath the water’s murky surface, and as he straightened, they came away with muddy wet clumps. He tossed them into a wooden bucket and then topped the rest with more water.
Examine.
Impure Clay Water
Well, that’s a good sign.
If the System was classifying it as clay water now, Alex knew that this deposit was at least pure enough to be processed into workable clay, which was something he couldn’t take for granted with how the world’s deathly aura tainted it black.
The purity would rise with time, and soon, Examine could even tell him the percentages.
That was the upside of real skills. Unlike Identify or other UI installations, they could be trained. The more time he spent examining a similar category of items, the more he’d know about them. The only problem was it took a while to get there. He’d been harvesting clay for at least a few hours now, and at first, it couldn’t tell him anything other than that it was hydrous phyllosilicate.
Alex gave a soft snort and—deciding the mixture had settled long enough—poured the top layer of scum back into the stream. He briefly glanced down at what was now his twenty-second bucket of the stuff before vanishing the mixture into his inventory, leaving behind a lone well-bucket.
The capability to separate the two was one of the features of the inventory upgrade that had come with his Nightmare starter pack. He’d thought the bonus laughable in his original run, but its utility was not to be scoffed at. Processing clay was tedious and time-consuming, and it wasn’t a guarantee he’d be able to find another suitable deposit when he needed more. If he’d had to process everything he needed in one batch with the normal inventory, then he would’ve needed a much bigger bucket.
Sighing in satisfaction, he vanished the bucket and sat down, wiping his dirty, wet hands on the gray grass. The wind ruffled the stained and torn rags that were once his work shirt, but it was no longer as cold. With his Perception stat increase he’d also grown accustomed to intentionally dulling his senses. Moreover, it seemed his Strength stat had increased his body mass, at least so far that he looked more like a twig branch in spring rather than one in mid-winter. Albeit, his body-fat content had yet to catch up and he had a leaner build than he’d like.
Further into town, Alex could still see the barest glimmer from torches and the once-massive fire as they faded into dawn’s light. Things had largely quieted down from earlier. There were still plenty of undead, but Jun must have done what Alex had told him to do.
The man was wary of Alex and was clearly not his biggest fan, but he listened when lives were at stake. A respectable trait in any other place, really. Yet, even as Alex had given Jun some instruction, a part of him didn’t expect him to survive the night.
He recalled their conversation once Jun awoke.
“Once you manage to overwhelm the Adventurers guarding the ritual, gather anyone in fighting shape and kill all the undead with the ‘Captain’ rank. They’re the only ones that can rally the common townsfolk.”
Captains were the only undead with the command to do so. And since the undead were once human, they too would splinter apart under an unclear chain of command. By day, the undead were weaker, and while the surviving adventurers in the catacomb tunnels may not feel the same exhaustion, without a leader to rally them, they would not be coming to the rescue of those above ground.
Cut the snake at the head, as they say.
If Jun had followed Alex’s other piece of advice, he wouldn’t stop there. Surviving the second scenario didn’t ensure he’d survive in the third. The undead were weak, and prime to be hunted now. It was what Alex had done, though he had a harder time of it in his first life.
It still won’t be enough, he reminded himself.
Jun had promise, but fate could only be defied so many times. If he didn’t change, Nightmare would eventually claim him, one way or another. And Alex wasn’t going to stick around to force that change upon him.
Clenching a handful of dead grass, he released it, watching it flutter away. His decision felt final and resolute.
It had been hard to calm his passion for the man’s potential, but even the greatest materials could be ruined by impatience. The growth he expected from Jun couldn’t be rushed, nor facilitated. He knew better than to get his hopes up. His instincts as a craftsman told him to wait and see.
As Alex sighed, the adrenaline from the tense night finally left his body. It had been accumulating from the very moment he’d found himself back in his cubicle, and it seemed that his black-out after smithing had only managed to bring it down to manageable levels again. Now, he felt his body relax. He hadn’t been collecting clay for nothing, after all.
If he wasn’t in any urgent danger, Alex preferred to let the adrenaline subside before looking at his rewards. The System was a ruthless master, but the rewards it tossed could taste addictively sweet after such a battle. That addiction—more than anything else in this cruel world—was dangerous.
Therefore, it was with a carefully composed sense of ease that Alex turned to his notifications.
Only to have his calm shattered.
Scenario 2 has ended!
Congratulations on surviving your second night!
You have killed:
96 Undead Villagers
49 Undead Adventurers
5 Undead Captains
1 Scenario Boss
Points acquired: 294 + X
Your performance has been graded: A-
Bonus Rewards:
Redeemed: x1 Status-recovery potion of choice
Redeemed: x1 Common-grade weapon from the shop, up to 5,000 EC in value
Redeemed: x1 High-grade Potion Set
Available: x1 skill from the shop up to 20,000 EC in value
Available: x1 Special Quest from the Local Guild
Available: x1 Nightmare Loot Box!
Alex gasped. A Nightmare Loot Box?!
It was his reward for defeating Lionheart so he knew it had to be something good, but really? This early?
Rewards for Scenario Completion:
+3,000 Essence Crystals
+1 Skill Trial Token
Items are now available for purchase in the shop!
[Intermediate Skills Catalog]
100 discounted moderate-difficulty skills of all shapes and sizes! Low costs and even lower slot-equips! Would you like to download it into the Shop interface?
Yes or No?
Yes.
Intermediate Skills Catalog has been downloaded!
[Traveler’s Map]
Offers three alternate paths to the nearby city of Eylinorthe. Would you like to download them into your UI?
Ye—
Yes, yes.
Alex dismissed the notification, letting the map attach itself to the corner of his vision. He’d gotten all these upgrades before in his past life. They were nothing noteworthy. Just the loot box alone would have been exciting, but something else caught his eye.
Based on your performance, additional rewards have been granted!
[High-grade Refinement Elixir - Consumable]
A dense supply of high-grade Aspect-pure Aura designed to guide and aid refinement in preparation for forming a Spiritual Core.
3 Skill Instruction Slates
Creates an instruction guide to aid in learning a skill. The user must meet all known skill requirements. The user must already have the skill affixed, or own a copy in their Personal Library. Instruction Slates will break after one use.
Alex’s breath caught. Either of these rewards would have been a valuable resource outside of Nightmare, hoarded by mage families for their most promising talents. And even then, to get both… It was a stark reminder of just how different his starting point had been to those monsters he’d feared.
And to think I’d been about to call it a day…
The thought terrified him now. The gap between them would’ve only widened and nothing made that more evident than reading the description of his final reward:
Pathforger’s Stone
Integrate with your Essence to trigger a Custom Skill-path.
That was it. No requirements, no frills. Just two words and a short explanation. It felt like the wind was knocked out of Alex. He fell back on the sloped grass and let out a weak laugh, summoning the item into his palm. It was just a small rock, smooth like a river stone, etched with a few runes he couldn’t read. And yet, it was everything.
So, this is where fate starts to branch for us, huh.
The stream bed was far enough from the town that he had a distant view of the Guild Hall from where he lay. His eyes glazed over as he remembered how he’d survived in his first life. Sure, he had his dangersense, but it hadn’t helped him a lot this early on. His whole life on Earth, he’d been taught that he was the crazy one. When his trait had strengthened from his awakening, for a time he’d thought he must’ve gone mad.
No, the reason he’d survived was simple luck.
He hadn’t slept that first night in his first life either. But when he’d gotten to the tavern, the atmosphere and companion ship had eased some of his tension. Exhausted and sleep-deprived, he’d simply passed out at some point and when he’d come to, he was already underground with the others.
From there, it had been one thing after another—starvation, monster attacks, vampires, betrayal—until eventually, he’d stopped to look around and realized he was the only one who hadn’t dropped dead; because he was the only one willing to dirty his hands for the sake of it. There had been no breathing room for planning or plotting. He’d just followed the basic warrior skill path step by step, buying each skill as it was offered until, one step away from qualifying for the warrior class, he’d snapped and become a Blacksmith.
Now, he had a wealth of knowledge to draw from. Information was the most hoarded resource in Nightmare, and the basic skill paths were just that—basic. Sixteen paths, eight combat and eight non-combat ones. They were limited in every way but for their sheer convenience. Those who could afford to, salvaged them by buying a Class-advancement Path further down the line, or by triggering Class-quests if they met the conditions. Basic paths were probably never meant to do anything but lay a foundation for that, but the steep cost of those alternatives in comparison to holding off for a better skill path from the start perverted any good intentions behind that design. If Alex had continued his Warrior path, he would have found his potential capped at some point.
Without aligning beneath a constellation, at least. The thought didn’t give Alex the usual shudder.
Ultimately, the fate of a common warrior may have been preferable to where his path had led, but he wasn’t dwelling on it right now. His mind felt far away from his body as he lined the stone on the ground next to the slates, elixir, and the Nightmare Loot Box.
The Pathforger’s Stone did exactly what the name implied—it allowed one to forge their own skill path, without the barriers of skill availability and path secrecy. To equip a Class, your Essence-signature has to match with its Essence-pattern. The imprints that skill-patterns leave on your Vital Essence are what accomplished this, but where other skill-paths provided skills as a means of shifting your Essence-signature to match with a pre-determined Class, the Pathforger’s Stone did the opposite.
Utilizing all the System’s data, the Pathforger’s Stone offered its skills uninhibited by regulation and adjusted its path heedless of guarded secrets. It wasn’t just a means to an end. It reversed the process, offering skills in reaction to the evolution of your Essence-signature, and providing Class-options that aligned with the path you willed. It wasn’t something you’d expect to find two days into the apocalypse.
But… I guess the strangest part is that I don’t need it anymore.
Alex held the stone up to the sun, blotting it out. It looked like just an ordinary rock against the blinding light, and for his purposes it might as well be. Because despite all the mistakes he’d made, the twists and thorns that lined his path, he’d still almost gotten there in the end. It had been right there in his grasp before… well… before he was magically crippled, everyone he cared for had been killed and everything else was ruthlessly stolen from him.
But the point was, he knew the path now. He knew how to get Blacksmith-Warrior on his own. And just like his bloodline had told him, he knew that what he had always wanted lay beyond that.
And he still wanted it. That feeling he’d experienced with Lys—the rush of all his parts—his warrior’s instincts, his blacksmith’s passion, his pain and suffering, his joy and hope—gathered behind one attack. To become a singular existence.
If that wasn’t the enlightenment immortals so often spoke of, he didn’t know what was.
And you, my friend, are what’s going to make that possible.
The Pathforger’s Stone may look like an ordinary rock… but no, Alex supposed it wasn’t. No ordinary rock could demand the ransom of a small planet in Essence Crystals. With this, all his monetary concerns were null.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Alex was pulled back to reality when an undead fish splashed onto the ground in front of him. It flopped stupidly for a moment. He chuckled and gently pushed its fleshless carcass back into the water.
He placed the stone into his pocket, and then pulled out everything he looted from Lionheart for inspection.
[Forsaken Blade (Uncommon, D Grade)]
A once-noble Great-sword that had its nature twisted alongside its owner. It now brings slow death to all it touches.
Trait: Sepsis
[Enchanted Scabbard (Common, E Grade)]
Carved from aged oak and enchanted to fit any sword. Designed to contain and conceal aura.
[Steel Daggers (Common)]
Twin daggers made of fine steel.
[Undead Bone Fragment (Material - C Grade)]
A bone infused with highly condensed Essence—nearly unbreakable.
[Lionheart Skill Stone]
Activate to obtain a randomized skill drop from an enemy.
Alex gave each item a cursory glance. He’d already gotten a glimpse of everything when he took them from the boss’s ashes. The only other noteworthy drops were a ring that gave a +5 boost to his strength stat and matching ones for perception and lucidity—a stat he didn’t even have.
But there was a reason the world wasn’t ruled by rich kids with a thousand rings on their pinky fingers, so he simply equipped the strength ring and stored the rest away for later.
Then there was the core his sword had eaten. That matter was entirely confusing, but he opted not to linger on it for now.
So, let’s see… What to do…
Alex tapped his chin in thought, trying to figure out his next steps. But all his rewards bypassed the part of his brain capable of critical thinking and went straight to the part that just wanted to bask in it all. He blinked tiredly, leaning back on the grass, mind blank.
Before he knew it, time passed just like that. A peaceful sigh escaped his lips, reminding him of days long past.
He gave a long yawn and fell asleep.
* * *
“I’m sorry, Alex,” a dwarven voice said.
There was a thud as the forge master sat down on the veranda beside him, his voice deep and grave.
“Aye, I have nothing to teach you. But I shouldn’t have thrown you out on yer ass like that, either. I dishonored yer passion, and I don’t take pride in it.”
He spoke, but Alex was hardly listening. His mind was busy coasting on the peace of nature. Over the rolling hills, the village children’s laughter filled what might have otherwise been an awkward silence. He lay on his back, head nestled in his palms, not bothering to turn from sky to face the dwarf.
Cloud-gazing never got boring on this planet.
Hm? An apology?
His lazy mind slowly caught up with him.
It’s been three weeks since I’ve come here. Why now?
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex eventually said. “Apology accepted. What you said wasn’t false anyway. It's true, I don’t have much passion for the craft.”
Alex waited for him to take that as the dismissal that it was. They’d return to their usual exchange of half-hearted insults or grouchy comments with a healthy serving of mutual avoidance. The dwarf would snark something about him being a lazy freeloader, stand up, leave, and that would be that.
He was just a staple grouchy forge master on some fringe planet, and Alex his talentless apprentice who couldn’t weasel his way out of an opportunity he didn’t want. This would be just one among the innumerable odd encounters in the universe, forgotten in time like all the others.
Instead, the dwarf just had to speak those two words. “I know.”
Alex winced at the wistful tone. “So, you know, huh.”
“Aye, I can tell when a man is not whole.”
Alex didn’t so much as grimace. It was enough to grab his attention, so, with a tired groan, he sat up. The clouds were nice, but the gardens were beautiful too—something he attributed somewhat begrudgingly to their dwarven caretaker. He measured Alex’s stock with ancient eyes, and Alex dropped any obfuscation to what must have been obvious to him by this point.
“I see,” the dwarf said. “Things didn’t add up. Some passionless schmuck walks in, pawning what could only be a Dwarvish antique off as their own, and I saw red. Forgive me for getting all riled up—no, never mind forgiveness. My anger was undue, and that’s all. That wyvern’s blade could be crafted by none other than yourself.”
Dwarvish antique…?
The thought drifted languidly, and Alex had half a mind to ask, to grab the bait dangling on the hook. But the urge vanished among the clouds as he looked back up again, responding with the usual taciturn sarcasm.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
His forge master snorted. “Immortal blacksmith or not, there’s nothing I can do for yer ailment, but stupid customs ’n’ honor require I right this wrong, one way or ‘nother.”
“Sounds rough.”
“If you wish, and if you vow to secrecy, Alex, I will reveal the secrets of my Dwarven ancestors and the truth behind your bloodline’s abilities.”
“No.”
Alex didn’t even have to think about his response. There was no point anymore. Such knowledge would only bring him pain.
A moment passed in silence, and the gravity of the situation finally soaked in. “Thanks for the offer, though. That’s… that’s a lot.”
His master was chuffed. “‘Course it is, you ingrate. Armies have perished for the kinda information I’d have given you.”
Damn… Maybe I could’ve sold this informa—no, it definitely would’ve been a fool-proof vow to secrecy.
Alex clicked his tongue, and his master had an incredulous look on his face.
“Aye, regardless then, recompense has been offered and turned down. My honor debt has been repaid, or so the tradition goes. Now, why don’tcha make yourself useful or something, ya damn freeloader.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Alex waved him off and his dwarven “master” mumbled grumpily about the three meals a week their arrangement required him to provide.
Alex found himself lost in thought again. It had been almost a year since Earth’s defeat, and ever since that last assault, it felt like there was a core, integral part of him missing from his soul.
The truth was actually much worse than that, curse his sorry fate.
Perhaps there was another version of his life, one where things had ended differently, where he had not been so broken by the end. He would’ve studied hard under his dwarven master, sapped the immortal for all the knowledge he was worth. Maybe then he’d have accepted the offer. He would’ve followed him down to the caverns beneath his house, read whatever pictographs were etched into its walls, learned the truth of the universe, and maybe, if he was lucky, inherited the craft of those ancient dwarven ancestors he’d droned on about.
Maybe, but that was not Alex’s fate. His life would end with him dead in some dungeon somewhere, betrayed probably, and that would be that.
The thought brought a tinge of sadness, and he was more than happy to let this one float with the clouds and disappear.
“It’s a shame,” his master said, “about the sword that is. Such a strong voice, and yet her master is incapable of listening.”
Right, ‘Listen’.
Alex almost scoffed as the master stalked off, but his tone had an inflection of sadness that gave him pause—that, and a memory resurfaced that the clouds refused to take from him.
He lifted his wyvern-blade above his head, unsheathing a glimmering inch of it from its scabbard. And for a second, he could almost imagine a vibration there to her steel, as fanciful as it was.
‘She’ huh…
He put her aside, and an amused smile crossed his face. Well, at least it’s a nice thought.
To think that his battles weren’t fought alone.
* * *
Before Alex realized, he held Undeath’s Bane aloft, the light filtering through the cracks along her blade. Her aura had gone strangely silent since their last battle, almost as if she’d entered a kind of hibernation, but he could still sense her presence—damaged but not lost.
‘She’... yeah, it’s a she alright.
He closed his eyes, reflecting on the moment he used Sever on the boss. Something about the skill must have resonated with his blade, enough to connect him to her will. He recalled the shrill pitch of her metal as it cut into the core, and now, he imagined sadness there. Longing, a somber desire. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but even that held value.
Before he knew it, he had slipped into a meditative trance.
Awareness and command. One enables the other, yet awareness itself must be commanded. It's an endless cycle—one before the other, before the one—and at the center…the origin of my will.
2,600 Essence Crystals have been consumed.
Essence swirled in Alex’s spirit—but that was not the Essence he reached for. He uncorked one of his rewards—the Refinement-elixir’s aspect-pure, inhaling the barest wisp of the cloudy substance through his nose. Then he reached for the Essence from the world of Nightmare.
His breathing naturally fell into the rhythm described in the Fallen Feather of the Phoenix Refinement Technique, and the Essence in the world stirred. From the grey grass, to the dry soil that gave it life, Essence seeped from the world at his call. The Aura he’d inhaled circulated through-out his astral body, centering in his inner-world. Dragged along by its currents, the world’s Essence began to circulate within Alex too.
He had no need to use his Vital Essence and risk losing his soul to the dark. With this, he already had enough Essence circulating to cycle according to the technique’s next steps, which he recalled from his memory.
The feather falls in an infinite spiral…
Alex creased his brow, his Essence slipping from his grasp. The descriptions were just as unclear, and the Refinement technique's cycling pattern wasn’t as intuitive as its basic breathing pattern had been. He managed to cycle his Essence into the pattern of a spiral, but the next steps eluded him, as though they were incompatible with his nature. So instead, he focused only on the first step.
The fallen feather drifts by wind’s currents, drawn by gravity yet never finding its center.
He cycled his Essence ever downward, ever deeper to the core of his being. Unbound power merged with his soul, intertwining with his Vital Essence. He followed the trace of its flow, his senses ever-grasping for its trail, yet it evaded him the deeper he went. There were depths to his soul that even Alex couldn’t sense.
He’d always assumed that sun was the center of his soul, but now he realized it spiraled deeper than that, perhaps centerless. He lost track of the Essence as he felt it join his existence. The sun was too bright to stare directly at, and instead he examined his Vital Essence that drifted its exterior, his sun’s corona. Deeply intertwined with it were traces of a purple flame.
He turned his thoughts back to the sword in his hand. Every power you tether with your existence imprints back on your soul. In small, subtle ways, they change the fabric of your very being. But the shamshir had changed Alex more than he’d thought possible.
When he’d entrusted his fate to Sever, it hadn’t been from some tidbit of trivia he’d remembered from his first life. It’d been because he wanted to use that skill. Now, he concentrated on the imprint Sever left on his soul, tracing the pattern’s weave to remnant flame and stray wisps of purple-tinged Essence.
His senses stretched their limits, grasping until he reached a semblance of understanding.
Cleanse and Sever—both cut from the soul.
You have leveled up!
+3 Arcane
You have reached Level 15. Further leveling is impossible until you choose your Foundation class.
Please visit the class page on your interface for eligible classes.
Alex opened his eyes. Gleaming through his shattered sword’s cracks, the sun that cycled around this dead planet gleamed. And clearly, this planet was not entirely dead.
Essence has Integrated with your Soul
Alex swiped the notification aside. The system gave him no indicator for how much Essence he’d manually refined, but he reckoned it was somewhere in the range of 50 to 100 Essence Crystals over the last thirty minutes. It was a remarkable improvement over his last efforts thanks to the Elixir’s aura, and one that would see him forming his Core this century to say the least.
…So long as he could find more of the stuff.
He sighed, eyeing the stoppered bottle before vanishing it to his inventory. Even the bare whiff he’d inhaled was too much. If he wanted to make it last he needed to stretch its effectiveness and refine at a much slower rate. But between it, and the funds he’d be coming into…
Perhaps becoming a Mage in this life is more than just a pipe dream.
Alex stood, staring out into the sky. Life was good. He’d reached level fifteen. The Class he’d yearned for was within his grasp. The bloodline that was stolen from him had returned, and soon his other missing pieces would return too. He’d survived another night, won another Scenario, and now watched the rise of dawn for the second time in so many years.
And yet… it felt hollow. Lys had shattered. Alyssa could be lying in a ditch somewhere, gazing at the sun with glassy eyes. And Laura…
Alex tightened his fists, seeing her death play out in his mind as he’d seen it so many times over the years. The rattle of chains whispered near again, a reminder that no amount of strength was enough to contend with his real demons.
Anne, The Red Mistress.
Can I kill her?
Alex’s breath quickened. He quelled the shiver that arose at her memory, then ground his jaw in rage. He needed to. There was no choice in the matter; he needed to bury her and put it all behind him. How could he hope to dream while the Nightmare that haunted him most still walked the Earth?
But if revenge was his goal, he wasn’t enough. He needed a strong advantage, a weapon. And thankfully, he remembered exactly where to find it.
By the time Alex walked off, only one reward held his attention.
Acquire a Special Quest from your local Guild.
* * *
Alex had saved indulging in his achievements for another time because it simply hadn’t felt like the right mood. Now, he boldly strolled through the town on his way to the forge.
Well, “bold” may have been a stretch. He half-ambled, half-limped, still afflicted by his unhealed wounds. Cuts and gashes covered him head to toe, and even if the gauze had stopped their bleeding and Sepsis’s effects, it did nothing to dull the discomfort and pain.
As he ventured further into town, he could feel eyes on him from behind windows or shadowed alley corners. Under different circumstances, casually strolling through in his state might’ve been reckless. The undead were weaker in daylight but they weren’t fearful of it the way vampires were. Though weakened, they could still pick off a stray lamb.
But at the same time, they knew who had killed their boss.
A child peeked through a shuttered window and his mother shut it when Alex looked their way. There were still many remaining, but far fewer than he’d expected.
Did Jun and the others take down that many?
Or was that other person?
Regardless, it was to his benefit, and Alex was relieved when he reached forge without incident. He wasn’t entirely defenseless if they tried anything but his HP wouldn’t recover from it if he received any scrapes. And he knew all too well how uncomfortable smithing at under 40% HP could be.
He stepped over the piles of ash at the broken doorway to the forge, casually picking up the core from the Captain Rank undead he’d slain. All of his joints ached as he bent down.
I can’t wait to finally advance my class and heal all these wounds…
He didn’t need to check his class-quest tab to know that Blacksmith Warrior would be listed there. Just as he hadn’t needed to open it to learn what its Class’s Quest would demand of him. He grimaced, pulling out his sword and brushing her cracks. He’d known this might happen and now it left a pang in his heart.
It’d seemed like such an easy decision last night, but—
“Hey there. What a coincidence.”
Alex flinched, reaching for his knife.
“Oh, settle down.”
He finally noticed the man seated on a lone stool amidst the battle-torn forge. Somehow, despite the forge’s door being virtually gone, it had taken Alex several seconds to register the man’s presence. Even with the shimmering golden armor beneath his cloak and the smug, bored smile, which should have been immediate notifiers of his presence.
“Xii-Velrick,” Alex scowled.
The Guide narrowed his eyes briefly before regaining his casual demeanor. “Strange, I thought I introduced myself as just Velrick.”
Shit.
“Ah, no matter. It’s good you’re here, I was just about to come fetch you.”
“For?”
Alex tried to appear unaffected. Why was he here? Velrick hadn’t just shown up like this in his last life. Has something changed?
Velrick yawned. “What do you mean ‘For?’”
A simple flick of his wrist flashed a new notification in Alex’s interface. Then a black portal opened behind Velrick and he stood. “Let’s go, we’re already late. If you lag, I won’t leave you this time—I’ll drag you through.”
What—
Blindsided, Alex scrolled past his achievements, reading the notification repeatedly, trying to grasp its absurdity. The gravity of the situation finally sunk in.
Jesus Christ…
* * *
Achievement unlocked!
[Confident Bastard]
You took on more than ten enemies alone!
+130 Essence Crystals
Achievement unlocked!
[They Grow Up So Quick]
You have upgraded a skill to the Adept rank!
+200 Essence Crystals
Achievement unlocked!
[Min-Max God]
You have gained three stat increases from just one level!
+ 210 Essence Crystals
Achievement unlocked!
[I Don’t Need a Pit Crew]
You faced down the scenario boss all on your own and (assumably) survived!
+1 Essence Crystal
Achievement unlocked!
[Ahead of the Curve]
You have defeated the Scenario 2 boss!
You are 1 of 4,196 to have unlocked this achievement!
+ 2,000 Essence Crystals
Achievement unlocked!
[Nightmare’s Spawn]
You have defeated the scenario boss alone.
You are 1 of 24 to have unlocked this achievement.
[Nightmare VIP Pass] has been added to your inventory.
[Nightmare Token] x3 has been added to your inventory.
* * *
New notification!
Given your great deeds, [Invitation to The Gathering] has been added to your inventory.
Note:
Attendance is mandatory for those who have unlocked the Nightmare’s Spawn achievement.
A System Guide will pick you up shortly.
