Eden was sitting on top of three enormous spider corpses.
The boss chamber looked completely different now.
Three grotesque humanoid spiders lay motionless across the floor.
The two lackeys had been dealt with first.
They hadn’t lasted long.
The boss had lasted slightly longer.
But only slightly.
Eden had initially expected the fight to be difficult.
Instead, it had been almost embarrassing.
All three of them used poison and paralysis skills, which thanks to devour turned out to be useless.
The fight quickly turned into a one-sided beat down.
The boss hadn’t even managed to land a proper attack.
Eden leaned backward and pulled his phone from his pocket.
He scrolled through his contacts.
Then stopped.
He pressed call.
The phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then someone answered.
"Hello?"
"Hi, is this the Alchemists-Guild?"
Eden looked around at the dungeon.
"I’m calling about selling some materials."
There was a brief pause.
"Materials?"
"Yes."
"What kind?"
Eden looked at the corpses.
"Monster materials. Relic fragments. A few other things."
"I’d also like to buy some potions."
"What kind?"
"Essence recovery. Health. Attribute boosters, if you have them."
Another pause.
The Alchemists were one of the Four Major Guilds.
They weren’t merely a guild that happened to have alchemists.
Alchemy was their specialty.
Potions.
Medicine.
Enhancement formulas.
Essence recovery.
Rare materials.
If something could be consumed to make an Awakened stronger, healthier, or more capable—
The Alchemists probably sold it.
And Eden needed all of that.
Especially now.
The voice on the phone spoke again.
"Sir?"
Eden snapped back to reality.
"Yes?"
"Would you like to arrange an evaluation of the materials?"
"Absolutely."
"Then we can schedule—"
"Today."
Another pause.
"Today?"
"Yes."
Eden glanced at the time.
"I have a lot of things to sell."
He looked at the three giant spider corpses.
Then at the backpack beside him.
Then back at the corpses.
His smile widened.
"And I intend to buy quite a lot, too."
The next few days passed in a blur of Gates, corpses, and System notifications.
For Eden, it was almost peaceful.
He had quickly fallen into a routine.
Wake up.
Find an F-Rank Gate.
Clear it.
Devour anything remotely useful.
Sell whatever remained.
Repeat.
It was not glamorous.
It was not particularly exciting either.
But it worked.
And, more importantly, Eden was getting stronger.
Much stronger.
The first major change came several days into his dungeon grind.
Eden stood in a dark cavern, one dagger buried in the throat of a struggling Abyss Creature.
The creature looked like some twisted cross between a large insect and a starving dog, its limbs scraping desperately against the stone as it tried to escape.
Eden watched it squirm for a while before finishing it off with Devour.
The creature disappeared within seconds.
A faint blue System notification appeared before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Acquired]
Paralysis [D-Rank]
Imbue the target with the user’s Essence, significantly slowing their movements.
Effectiveness depends on the target’s resistance.
Against sufficiently weak targets, complete paralysis may occur temporarily.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eden stared at it for several seconds.
"...Paralysis."
He tilted his head.
’Not bad.’
’Not amazing either.’
Compared to Devour, the skill felt almost laughably ordinary.
Compared to Phase Shift, it was similarly unimpressive.
But ordinary didn’t mean useless.
Especially when combined with his daggers.
Eden looked down at the two blades in his hands.
If he stabbed an opponent and planted his Essence directly into their body, he could trigger Paralysis almost immediately.
Against low-ranked Abyss Creatures, the effect was surprisingly potent.
One stab.
One burst of Essence.
One crippled monster.
Then another stab.
It made clearing F-Rank Gates considerably easier.
"Guess I’ll keep it."
Devour didn’t exactly offer refunds anyway.
By the time Eden reached Level 25, the System finally gave him something he already knew was coming.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Congratulations!]
You have reached Level 25.
Your Rank has increased.
You are now an E-Rank Awakened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Rank Progression Information]
F-Rank: Level 1–25
E-Rank: Level 25–50
D-Rank: Level 50–100
C-Rank: Level 100–150
B-Rank: Level 150–200
A-Rank: Level 200–300
S-Rank: Level 300–400
SS-Rank: Level 400–500
SSS-Rank: Level 500–600
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eden stared at the notification.
Then shrugged.
"Already knew that."
And yet...
Seeing that little notification still felt strangely satisfying.
’E-Rank.’
Technically, he had just become one.
A fresh E-Rank.
Except Eden knew that wasn’t actually true.
He looked at his hands.
His physical strength alone was already far beyond what a conventional E-Rank should possess.
Devouring dozens of Abyss Creatures had allowed his attributes to climb far beyond what someone his level normally had.
Unfortunately, there was a problem.
A rather annoying one.
The moment he became E-Rank, most F-Rank creatures stopped giving him anything.
Eden stabbed a small creature through the skull and activated Devour.
The creature vanished into red Essence.
Nothing.
Eden stared at the spot where the corpse had been.
"...Seriously?"
The System offered no response.
He sighed.
"Right. Is it because of the Rank difference?"
Devour wasn’t an infinite cheat code.
The stronger he became, the less valuable low-ranked corpses were to him.
And that meant his hunting grounds would have to change eventually.
For now, however, F-Rank Gates were still useful for experience.
So Eden kept going.
Level 26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
By the end of his first week, he had reached Level 31.
And he had also spent a considerable amount of time doing something he had never expected to do after regressing.
Going to the gym.
"Again."
Lucy stared at Eden.
"No."
"Again."
"No."
Eden crossed his arms.
Lucy was sitting on a bench, completely exhausted.
Her brown hair was damp with sweat, and her breathing was uneven.
"I’ve already done twenty!"
"The goal is thirty."
"...Twenty-seven?" Lucy nervously tried to bargain.
"Thirty."
Eden stared at her.
Lucy stared back.
A few seconds passed.
"...Twenty-eight," she muttered.
"Fine," Eden sighed.
Lucy looked like she wanted to cry.
Eden, meanwhile, looked completely satisfied.
If it were up to him, Lucy would have already been raiding Gates alongside him.
She had immense potential.
He knew exactly what she would eventually become.
But potential meant nothing if the body couldn’t support it.
Her Essence reserves were growing.
Her skill was powerful.
But her physical body was still far too weak.
She couldn’t properly utilize what she had.
And Eden refused to let her enter a dungeon like that.
"You need a stronger foundation."
"I know."
"Then stop complaining."
"I’m allowed to complain!"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I don’t allow it."
Lucy frowned.
"You’re really annoying."
"And yet you owe me for saving you."
She sighed and continued exercising.
For the first few days, she complained constantly.
Then she started complaining less.
Then, eventually, Eden noticed something.
She was actually trying.
Not because he ordered her to.
Because she wanted to improve.
Eden didn’t say anything about it.
But he noticed.
By the second week, Eden finally decided Lucy was ready.
"You’re coming with me."
Lucy froze.
"...Where?"
"A Gate."
Her face immediately paled.
"No."
"Yes."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Eden."
"Lucy."
"I don’t want to."
"I don’t care."
Lucy looked genuinely offended.
"You can’t just drag me into a dungeon!"
Eden grabbed the back of her jacket.
"Looks like I can."
"Eden!"
She protested the entire walk there.
Eden ignored her.
When they finally entered the Gate, however, Lucy’s complaints quickly disappeared.
Because the moment they encountered their first group of Abyss Creatures...
Eden annihilated them.
One creature lunged.
Eden sidestepped.
His fist slammed into its jaw.
The creature spun through the air and crashed into the wall.
Another attacked from behind.
Eden ducked without even looking.
His elbow drove into its ribs.
Then his dagger flashed.
The monster stiffened.
[Paralysis]
It collapsed.
Lucy stood several meters away, staring.
"...You’ve gotten stronger."
Eden looked over his shoulder.
"Obviously."
"No."
Lucy shook her head.
"I mean... a lot stronger."
Eden shrugged.
"I’ve been training."
She narrowed her eyes.
"This goes beyond simple exercise at the gym."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Well what the hell do you think have I been doing everyday while you sat at home complaining about sore muscles?"
"..."
"You didn’t have to be so mean about it..."