About an hour’s walk from the pristine academy, he reached an unmonitored Rift, a dimensional fracture picked clean decades ago and completely abandoned by the authorities. The city government did not patrol it because there was absolutely nothing valuable left inside.
But nothing valuable did not mean empty.
Two dirty scavengers crouched near the collapsed chain-link fence that marked the boundary, picking hopelessly through a pile of worthless scrap metal.
One of them, a toothless old man with a rusty mechanical arm that sparked dangerously when it moved, looked up at Alvian.
"Going in there, kid?"
Alvian nodded silently.
"Alone?"
He nodded again.
The old man exchanged a grim glance with his partner. "Sludge Beetles in the lower passages. Nasty little shits. Their tough shells will easily turn a cheap blade."
He squinted critically at Alvian’s rusted iron shortsword. "That piece of garbage will snap long before it ever pierces."
"I’ll manage."
"Your funeral."
The old man coldly returned to his scrap pile.
’A free grave does sound incredibly nice right about now,’ Alvian mused internally as he walked away.
Alvian pushed forcefully through the broken fence and descended into the dark rift.
The air changed instantly, growing thicker, heavy with moisture, and leaving a bitter metallic tang on the back of his throat.
The sky above shifted from a boring smog grey to a sickly, poisonous green. The ground beneath his heavy boots became soft, waterlogged earth that greedily sucked at his heels.
He had been scouting this exact location for weeks during his free periods, flawlessly memorizing the layout.
He knew the Sludge Beetles nested deep in the lower passages. They were Rank 1 primitive monsters, barely a step above common vicious animals. Their shells were incredibly tough, but they possessed a single, unarmored eye in the exact center of their ugly heads.
Kill one, brutally harvest its Essence Core, and sell it on the black market. Five credits per core.
He desperately needed four beetles to close the gap between his pathetic twelve credits and Martha’s fifty credit medicine.
However, the first beetle found him long before he found it.
"Click. Click. Click."
A wet clicking sound echoed out ominously.
Suddenly, the creature burst violently from a collapsed pipe to his left, its razor-sharp mandibles snapping wildly!
The Sludge Beetle was as big as a large dog. Its body was heavily armored in thick, overlapping plates of brownish-green chitin. Its single eye, a bulbous wet thing, swiveled toward Alvian and instantly locked on.
It lunged.
Alvian threw himself sideways with everything he had, and the deadly mandibles snapped shut right where his leg had been a heartbeat earlier.
He rolled smoothly across the wet ground, came up sharply on one knee, and drove the rusted shortsword forward in a desperate, full-power thrust.
"CLANG!"
The dull blade slid right off the beetle’s thick shell with a screech of sparks. It was completely useless!
The beetle pivoted instantly. It was terrifyingly faster than something that ugly had any right to be.
"Slash!"
Its mandibles caught Alvian’s left forearm in a brutal grip.
Pain shot through his entire body as the hard jaws clamped down hard, easily ripping through his cheap clothes and flesh.
"AGH!"
He did not let go of his sword. He swung again, aiming much lower, angling perfectly for the creature’s vulnerable eye.
"Squick!"
The blade punched directly into the soft, wet tissue and sank all the way to the rusted hilt.
The beetle shrieked a horrible, gurgling sound as its mandibles finally released Alvian’s bleeding arm. It thrashed wildly, dragging Alvian forward, but he held on tightly with a grimace, twisting the blade even deeper into its brain.
Three seconds of violent spasming later, the monster went completely still.
Alvian ruthlessly yanked the sword free and collapsed heavily onto his back, gasping desperately for air.
His left arm was bleeding profusely, a deep, ugly gash running all the way from his elbow to his wrist. He quickly tore a strip from his uniform and wrapped it tight, wincing hard as the rough fabric pressed directly into raw, exposed flesh.
Then, the entire world froze.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
The foul air stopped moving. The dripping contaminated water from the ceiling hung completely suspended in mid-air. A fly that had been circling the beetle’s corpse froze perfectly with its wings mid-beat. Even the beetle’s blood, still oozing from its fatal wound, stopped in place.
Alvian’s heart literally stopped beating.
A crisp sound echoed deep in his skull. It was not heard with his physical ears, but felt in the absolute center of his brain.
exactly the kind you would hear from a high-stakes casino.
[Ding! System Awakened!]
[Welcome to the 10,000x Infinite Roulette System, Host! Let’s see if the Heavens favor you today!]
A colossal holographic slot machine materialized directly in his vision.
It was giant and cosmic, made of pure starlight and swirling space dust. Three huge reels spun in a blur of bright colors and ancient symbols, turning so fast they looked like solid rings of blinding light.
Alvian could not move. He could not speak. He could not even blink.
The cosmic reels began to slow down.
"Bang!" The first reel stopped on Bronze.
"Bang!!" The second reel locked onto Bronze.
"Bang!!!" The third and final reel shuddered to a halt.
[Ding! Random multiplier activated: 5x!]
[Common Roll!]
[Sludge Beetle Base EXP: 10]
[Multiplier Applied: 5x]
[Total EXP: 50]
[Congratulations! Lifeform Level has broken through!]
[Mortal Tier Level 1 -> Level 2!]
A heavenly warmth flooded his entire body.
His muscles tightened nicely, his senses sharpened dramatically, and the terrible gash on his arm miraculously stopped bleeding as the tissue slowly began to knit back together.
┌──────[ Profile]──────┐
│ [Host]: Alvian Vance
│ [Level]: 2 (Mortal Tier) <0.00%>
│ [Talent]: Clearwater [E-Rank]
│ [STR]: 5 | [AGI]: 6 | [VIT]: 4
│ [INT]: 5 | [Essence]: 2
│ [Karma Points]: 0
│ [EXP Bank]: 0 / 100
└────────────────┘
Alvian stared wide-eyed at the floating blue interface. His mouth was hanging open, and his blood-covered hand trembled visibly at his side.
’What the hell is this?’ he thought, a sense of surreal disbelief washing entirely over him. ’A system? It’s really a system.’
The heavenly warmth finally faded. Alvian flexed his fingers experimentally.
The gash on his arm had closed. It was not fully healed, but the bleeding had completely stopped, and the skin around the wound looked pink and fresh. It looked like it was days into recovery instead of mere minutes.
His grip on the rusted shortsword felt noticeably more solid, more controlled. Stronger. He was definitely stronger!
’A system,’ he thought, turning the insane concept over in his mind. ’It multiplied the EXP. Five times. One dead, trash beetle gave me enough energy to jump an entire level.’
His eyes drifted deeper into the darkness, where the passages grew tighter and the skittering sounds rapidly multiplied.
Above him, the sickly green sky pulsed. Somewhere in the distance, something incredibly large shifted massive rubble with a grinding crash. The Rift was alive around him, groaning, dripping, and breathing through cracks in reality that never fully sealed.
’If one beetle and a 5x multiplier got me to Level 2, what happens if I brutally kill more? What happens if I actually get a Ten-Thousand Fold multiplier?’
Without hesitation, he moved deeper.
The lower passages were tighter, narrower, and completely choked with rusted scrap metal and collapsed piping that formed natural, claustrophobic corridors. Water dripped constantly from above, gathering in still puddles covered with colorful oil slicks.
A disgusting rat the size of a house cat scurried across the path ahead. Its fur was heavily matted, and its eyes glowed faintly with residual Essence mutation. It hissed menacingly at Alvian before disappearing into a crack in the wall.
Finally, Alvian found exactly what he was looking for.
A nest of three Sludge Beetles was clustered around a stagnant pool of contaminated water, greedily feeding on the corpse of something smaller and completely unidentifiable.
Their thick shells gleamed wetly in the faint green light, and their mandibles clicked rhythmically as they tore hungrily into the rotting meat.
He did not charge in blindly. That had nearly gotten him killed a pathetic death the last time.
Instead, he picked up a fist-sized chunk of rusted metal and hurled it violently against the far wall.
"CLANG!"
All three beetles snapped to absolute attention, their single eyes swiveling instantly toward the noise.
Alvian was already moving swiftly, positioning himself directly at the mouth of a narrow corridor between two collapsed pipes. It was barely wide enough for one fat beetle to pass through at a time.
He loudly banged his sword against the pipe to taunt them.
The first beetle charged blindly.
It squeezed forcefully into the corridor, mandibles clicking loudly, its single eye fixed entirely on Alvian.
He waited patiently until it was halfway through, exactly where the tight space prevented it from turning or dodging. Then, he stepped forward and drove his sword brutally into its eye.
"Squick!"
The blade sank incredibly deep. The beetle thrashed violently, but the metal walls held it perfectly in place. Alvian twisted the blade ruthlessly, and the creature went completely limp.
He yanked the sword free and dragged the heavy corpse aside just as the second beetle forcefully squeezed its way into the corridor.
This one was noticeably faster, its mandibles already snapping wildly.
Alvian calmly sidestepped, letting the stupid creature overextend itself. He then brought his sword down with crushing force on the back of its shell where the chitin was thinnest.
"CRACK!"
The blade bit in deep but did not pierce fully. He struck again, much harder, putting his entire Level 2 strength completely behind the blow.
The shell cracked wide open, and the beetle collapsed in a heap.
The third beetle was slightly smarter. It hesitated at the entrance, its wet eye darting nervously between Alvian and the bleeding bodies of its dead companions.
Alvian did not give it time to think.
He lunged explosively through the corridor, closed the short distance before the creature could retreat, and drove his sword straight into its glowing eye.
Three clean kills. Three valuable Essence Cores. And now...
The world froze.
That same casino jingle rattled loudly through his skull, and the cosmic slot machine materialized once more in his vision.
Its three reels were already spinning. They were bigger this time. Brighter.
The starlight that composed it pulsed with a much deeper, far more volatile energy, as if the machine itself recognized that something truly significant was about to happen.
[Ding! Combined Kill Detected!]
[Base EXP Pool: 30!]
The reels blurred wildly as colors mixed and separated. Gold, silver, bronze, cosmic black, and bright white spun in a dizzying flash that almost blinded Alvian.
Then, a sound he had never heard before rang out.
"GONG!"
The reels did not just stop smoothly. They slammed into place with explosive, earth-shattering force, each one glowing a brilliant, blinding gold.
[Ding! JACKPOT!]
[Random multiplier activated: 800x!]
[You lucky bastard!]
[Base EXP: 30]
[Multiplier: 800x]
[Total EXP: 24,000]
[Processing... processing... processing...]
Twenty-four thousand EXP!
Alvian’s mind instantly went completely blank. The astronomical number simply did not compute. It was more than enough to push a normal mortal to Level 15 in a single instant!
[WARNING: HOST CHASSIS INTEGRITY CRITICAL.]
Then, the unimaginable pain hit him.
"BOOM!"
It was not a gentle warmth this time. It was a roaring, apocalyptic volcano!
Twenty-four thousand EXP tried desperately to force its way into his fragile Level 2 body in a single second.
His cells literally screamed. His capillaries burst like overinflated balloons, painting his skin in a horrifying web of red lines. The crimson trails spread from his chest outward like bloody lightning bolts.
His muscles tore violently away from his bones. His skin cracked wide open like dry clay, and hot blood wept profusely from every single fissure.
Alvian screamed.
The agonizing sound ripped out of him, raw and animalistic.
He had been painfully hungry before. He had been beaten ruthlessly before. He had helplessly watched his mother cough up crystallized blood before. But none of that compared to this absolute hell.
This was his mortal body being physically torn apart from the inside by raw, unfiltered Essence that had absolutely nowhere to go.
His vision went terrifyingly dark at the edges. His heart stuttered, skipped a beat, then hammered wildly out of control.
He could actually feel himself dying. He could feel his internal organs compressing under the astronomical pressure.
’What a hilarious way to die. Exploding from too much luck!’he thought as darkness claimed his vision.
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
[Unlocking Mechanic A: The EXP Bank.]
Instantly, the pressure vanished.
The excess, terrifying energy, all twenty-three thousand EXP that his body could not possibly absorb, was siphoned aggressively away into the EXP Bank. It was a virtual vault that existed safely outside his physical form.
Alvian collapsed heavily, landing face-first into a large pool of his own hot blood.
His body twitched involuntarily, his muscles still spasming violently from the severe physical trauma. He could barely see, barely think, barely breathe. The wet, muddy ground was shockingly cold against his bloody cheek.
The System had genuinely given him a cheat. It was an incredible, reality-breaking cheat. And he had almost died a pathetic death.
His Level 2 body was nothing but a fragile glass cup, and he had tried to pour a raging river into it in one second. The cup naturally shattered.
But the System had saved him. The EXP Bank safely caught the massive overflow.
[EXP Bank: 23,000 EXP stored.]
[Available for manual allocation.]
Alvian lay motionlessly in the dirt, gasping desperately for air.
Twenty-three thousand EXP, sitting securely in a vault, patiently waiting for him to use it.
He finally understood now. He could not just absorb massive amounts of EXP all at once. His human body had strict limits. The Flesh Limit. He had to level up gradually, letting his mortal body adjust to each increase before pushing any further.
Carefully, with shaking hands that left bloody smears across the invisible interface, Alvian forcefully allocated the EXP.
[1,000 EXP spent. Level 2 -> Level 3.]
[Level 3 -> Level 4.]
[Level 4 -> Level 5.]
[Attribute Points gained. Allocating to VIT for tissue repair.]
[VIT increasing: 4 -> 9 -> 14 -> 18]
The miraculous change was immediate.
The deep, bloody gashes in his skin sealed completely shut. The burst capillaries faded away. The violently torn muscles in his arms and legs reknit themselves, becoming vastly denser and significantly tougher than before.
His breathing steadied, his heartbeat normalized completely, and the crushing headache stopped instantly.
Alvian pushed himself smoothly to his feet. He looked down at his hands in awe.
They were perfectly clean, steady, and radiating a quiet, explosive strength he had never felt before in his life.
┌──────[ Profile]──────┐
│ [Host]: Alvian Vance
│ [Level]: 5 (Mortal Tier) <0.00%>
│ [Talent]: Clearwater [E-Rank]
│ [STR]: 8 | [AGI]: 8 | [VIT]: 18
│ [INT]: 5 | [Essence]: 5
│ [Karma Points]: 0
│ [EXP Bank]: 23,000 / ∞
└────────────────┘
Eighteen Vitality!
His body was a durable tank now compared to what it had been an hour ago.
He knelt gracefully beside the three beetle corpses and brutally extracted their Essence Cores.
They were small, murky green crystals embedded deeply in each creature’s skull. Three cores, five credits each. Fifteen credits plus the twelve he already had. Twenty-seven total.
It was more than enough for Martha’s medicine.
He wrapped the cores carefully in cloth, shoved them in his pocket, and ran.
***
The Undercity was exactly what it sounded like.
It was the buried, rotting underbelly of Vaeloria where the academy’s rejects and the city’s poor clawed out a miserable existence in neon-lit, rain-slicked corridors.
Synthetic food vendors hawked gray nutrient paste from filthy stalls completely covered in gang graffiti. A drunk screamed mindlessly at a lamppost two blocks from Alvian’s apartment.
Two teenagers were trading bloody punches in an alley over what looked like a stolen credit chip, and nobody walking past even glanced at them.
The black-market dealer operated out of a heavily converted shipping container on the thirteenth level.
He was a greasy, disgusting man with cybernetic eyes that whirred loudly when he focused, and he never asked questions. He examined the three cores, grunted dismissively, and handed over fifteen credits without even looking up.
Alvian ran straight home.
The apartment was incredibly small and cramped.
Martha lay weakly on a thin mattress in the corner. Her breathing was shallow and wet, and each exhale was accompanied by a faint, horrifying crystalline rasp.
Leo sat quietly beside her, drawing on a scrap of paper with a stub of charcoal, his brow furrowed in deep concentration.
"Ian!" Leo jumped up with joy, his gap-toothed grin faltering the exact moment he saw the blood covering his brother’s clothes. "You’re hurt!"
"I’m fine," Alvian said firmly, already pulling the medicine from the bag.
It was a small vial of bluish liquid, glowing faintly in the dim light.
"Help me with Mom."
Together they carefully propped Martha up. Her eyes fluttered open slowly. They were cloudy, exhausted, but still the exact same warm brown they had always been. She looked at the vial, then at Alvian, and her face crumpled.
"Where did you get..."
"Doesn’t matter. Drink."
She drank it quickly. The miraculous effect was gradual but visible.
Her breathing deepened slightly, the crystalline rasp softened, and after a few minutes, a tiny bit of color crept back into her pale cheeks.
She reached up with a trembling hand and gently touched his cheek. "You’re bleeding."
"I’m fine, Mom."
"My brave boy."
Alvian held her hand there, not trusting himself to speak. His throat was incredibly tight.
He had almost died today, twice, and he would gladly do it again a hundred times if it meant seeing that beautiful smile.
Leo tugged firmly on his sleeve. "Ian? What happened to your arm?"
"Nothing. Just a small scratch."
"You’re lying."
"Yeah." Alvian ruffled his little brother’s hair with a small, genuine smile. "I’m lying. Go to sleep, Leo."
Leo grumbled annoyedly but obediently crawled into his corner of the mattress. Within minutes his breathing evened out, the charcoal stub still clutched firmly in his small fingers.
Martha’s eyes were closing too. "Don’t stay up too late," she murmured softly. "You have class tomorrow."
"I know, Mom."
She drifted off completely.
Alvian sat heavily with his back against the cold wall, pulling up his status panel one more time.
[Level: 5 | EXP Bank: 23,000]
Twenty-three thousand EXP sat in absolute reserve. A cosmic slot system was bound to his soul. And an entire city full of dangerous Rifts, terrifying monsters, and limitless opportunities was waiting to be ruthlessly exploited.
His mother was temporarily stable. His brother was safe.
Tomorrow, he would go deeper.