Rook hid his joyous reaction and cleared his throat.
"I need to rest. My head still hurts."
Seryn nodded.
"Okay. See you later."
He didn’t know where his room was, but the memories helped him find it.
Ashline was like a hidden academy. As he walked, he saw different people dressed in the same uniform working around, chatting, training, and... dancing?
’Are those cheerleaders?’
He raised an eyebrow as he saw a group of girls dancing in a very... seductive manner.
Shaking the thought away, he continued walking.
After a while, he got to his room. It was a small room with only a bunk bed, a small closet filled with clothes, and a chair occupying it. The window was small, but the little daylight that seeped into the room made it look mundanely beautiful.
He immediately shut the door and sat down.
He needed to think.
’Okay. Let’s go over this.’
He was Kanghyun. He died in his old world. He didn’t remember how it happened. But before that, something had been happening to him... he was in the middle of awakening.
Back in his previous life, people awakened Classes embedded with supernatural abilities and battled monsters. Those people were called Players.
He was about to awaken after two failed trials. And just when he was about to prove people wrong, he died.
For some reason, he believed it was related to his father’s enemies. His dad was popular and one of the strongest figures among the awakened. And fame attracted enemies. Who would they target if not his weak son?
Like his father from his past life would ever care?
For one thing, he had become useless to his family after failing the awakening twice.
’Killed for no reason, I guess,’ he sighed dejectedly.
It was still just a guess, though. He wasn’t sure.
Then after all that, he had been reincarnated as Rook. A peasant who was also having trouble awakening, but Kanghyun had been in the middle of awakening when he died.
’So what happened to that? Somehow, my awakening didn’t complete in my previous life and instead completed in this body.’
The dejection on Rook’s face deepened.
’So I helped another dude instead of helping myself.’
That explained the glitching. An awakening meant for one person in one world had been forced to finish inside someone else in a different world. No wonder it broke halfway.
He sat with that thought for a second.
’Fine. I’m alive. Let’s see what I’ve got.’
He held up his hand and thought the word "status."
A window popped up.
═══════════════
STATUS
═══════════════
Name: Rook Class: Elementalist Rank: F
Experience: 0/100
Health (HP): 100/100 Mana (MP): 100/100 Stamina (SP): 100/100
Strength: 8 Agility: 9 Vitality: 10 Intelligence: 15 Spirit: 14 Perception: 11 Luck: 5
Upgrade Points: ∞
Skills: [1] Fireball (F) [2] Water Manipulation (F) [3] Wind Blade (F) [4] Earth Spike (F)
Titles: None Equipment: None Inventory: Empty
═══════════════
Rook stared at the status screen for a while, making sure he hadn’t misread anything.
The first thing he checked was Infinite Upgrade Points.
The symbol in front of it remained the same no matter how long he looked at it. He reached out and touched it with a finger, expecting another explanation window to appear, but nothing happened.
"So it’s real."
He leaned back in his chair and let out a slow breath.
Whatever had happened during his death had completely broken the normal awakening process. He didn’t know whether that was a good thing or something that would eventually get him killed, but for now, he wasn’t planning to complain.
His eyes shifted to the list of skills.
Fireball, Water Manipulation, Wind Blade, and Earth Spike.
Four elemental skills from the very beginning.
According to Rook’s memories, that alone was unusual. Most Elementalists awakened with only one element and spent years trying to strengthen it. Those gifted enough to awaken with two elements were considered valuable and were often recruited by important squads in Ashline.
Four elements from the start were something Rook couldn’t remember ever hearing about. Yet compared to the Upgrade Points, the skills themselves almost looked ordinary.
The only question was whether those points could actually be used the way he was imagining.
Without saying anything, he focused on Fireball. The status screen flickered before another, smaller window appeared beside it. It contained only a few lines, making it much simpler than the main status page.
═══════════════
Fireball (F)
Mastery: Complete
Mana Cost: 10 MP
Upgrade Cost: 1 Point [Upgrade]
═══════════════
Rook blinked once before grinning.
"Seriously?"
It simply asked whether he wanted to upgrade it. Since his Upgrade Points were practically endless, there was no reason to hesitate.
He mentally pressed the Upgrade option.
A warm light surrounded the skill window before quickly disappearing.
═══════════════
Greater Fireball (E)
Mana Cost: 20 MP
Upgrade Cost: 2 Points
═══════════════
The upgrade happened instantly. The skill had simply changed name and shape.
Curious, he held out his palm. A small flame appeared above it, but unlike before, the fire was brighter and much hotter. The ball of fire was also nearly twice the size of Rook’s palm.
He dismissed it before it could burn anything inside the room and nodded to himself.
"So the upgrade is immediate."
Back on Earth, Players gained new skills every time they ranked up, but their existing skills couldn’t evolve. That meant even if he evolved Fireball into something stronger now, he would still receive another new skill when he reached E-Rank.
He didn’t stop there, already getting excited. He selected the Upgrade option again.
The skill evolved once more without any resistance. Then he upgraded it again.
Fireball became Flame Shot, then Flame Burst, each evolution increasing the mana cost along with the destructive power.
Rook watched quietly until the skill transformed once more.
═══════════════
Inferno (B)
Mana Cost: 200 MP
Upgrade Cost: 64 Points
═══════════════
Rook stared at the new skill before glancing upward at his mana pool.
He had seventy mana left.
Inferno required two hundred.
He had successfully evolved the skill several times without any restriction, but he no longer possessed enough mana to cast it.
That answered one of his questions immediately.
"Let’s confirm it."
He stretched out his hand toward the empty corner of the room and activated Inferno.
The mana inside his body stirred for a brief moment before everything suddenly stopped.
A familiar notification appeared in front of him.
[Insufficient Mana.]
[Current Mana: 70 MP.]
[Required Mana: 200 MP.]
The spell failed before even a spark could form.
Rook wasn’t disappointed.
Instead, he smiled — then frowned, an idea occurring to him. If the evolved version was locked behind mana he didn’t have, did that mean the earlier, cheaper versions were gone for good? He’d only ever pressed Upgrade going forward. He’d never tried going back.
He focused on the skill window again, and this time, instead of the newest evolution, a small arrow appeared beside it, one he hadn’t noticed before — a way to scroll backward through everything the skill had already become.
He tapped it once.
The window shifted, and Greater Fireball reappeared, sitting quietly beneath Inferno like a rung on a ladder rather than a page that had been torn out.
═══════════════
Skill Tree — Fireball: Fireball (F) → Greater Fireball (E) → Flame Shot (D) → Flame Burst (C) → Inferno (B)
Any unlocked tier may be cast at will. Mana Cost scales with the tier selected.
═══════════════
Rook read the line twice.
"So evolving doesn’t delete the old version. It just adds a new one on top."
That changed everything about how he’d been thinking of the points. He wasn’t replacing Fireball each time he upgraded it. He was building a ladder, and he could stand on whichever rung his mana allowed.
"Good to know," he muttered, filing the discovery away.
This was much better than discovering the limitation during an actual battle. At least now he knew the System wasn’t completely unreasonable.
He could evolve skills beyond his current capability, but whether he could actually use them depended on his own strength — and he could still fall back on a cheaper rung of the same ladder if he needed to.
If he wanted to reliably use Inferno, then he would first have to increase his mana.
His gaze slowly shifted toward the Spirit attribute.
Since Spirit was closely related to mana according to Rook’s memories, there was a good chance increasing it would solve the problem.
He concentrated on the number beside Spirit.
Another window appeared almost immediately.
═══════════════
Spirit: 14
Current Mana: 70 MP
Maximum Mana: 100 MP
Upgrade Cost: 1 Point [Upgrade]
═══════════════
"So attributes too."
He selected Upgrade.
The number changed from fourteen to fifteen.
At the same time, another notification appeared.
[Spirit has increased.]
[Maximum Mana has increased.]
[Maximum Mana: 105 MP.]
[Each point of Spirit grants +5 Maximum Mana.]
Rook nodded.
The increase wasn’t much, but it was enough to prove his theory.
He upgraded Spirit several more times.
Fifteen became sixteen. Sixteen became seventeen. With each upgrade, his maximum mana increased by another five points. However, his current mana remained at seventy.
Rook paused.
"So increasing my maximum mana doesn’t restore the mana I’ve already spent?"
That was slightly annoying, but it made sense. The attribute was increasing his capacity, not replenishing his reserves.
He continued upgrading Spirit.
As the number climbed, his maximum mana steadily increased until Spirit reached thirty.
═══════════════
Spirit: 30
Current Mana: 70 MP
Maximum Mana: 150 MP
═══════════════
Rook frowned.
"Still not enough."
Even with his Spirit at the current limit, his maximum mana was only one hundred and fifty. Inferno required two hundred — which meant it would stay a rung he could see but not stand on until he was stronger.
He glanced at his remaining Upgrade Points.
Infinite.
The problem wasn’t the cost.
It was his body.
He selected Spirit one more time.
The moment he attempted to upgrade it, the status window flickered.
[Warning.]
[Body Adaptation has reached its current limit.]
═══════════════
Attribute Upgrade — Current Rank: F
Current Body Adaptation: 100%
Maximum Attribute Limit at Current Rank: 30
Current Attributes: Strength 8/30
Agility 9/30
Vitality 10/30
Intelligence 15/30
Spirit 30/30
Perception 11/30
Luck 5/30
Warning: Increasing an attribute beyond the current adaptation limit will place excessive strain on the body.
Current Safe Upgrade Limit: 30 Points per attribute. Advance your Rank to raise your body’s adaptation limit.
═══════════════
Rook stopped immediately.
"Body adaptation?"
He looked down at his hands before slowly clenching his fists.
At first, nothing seemed different, but after standing up from the chair, he noticed his body felt strangely heavy.
His senses were sharper than before, and the mana flowing through him felt much stronger. Yet there was also a faint soreness spreading across his muscles, as though he had trained for hours without resting.
"So that’s the price."
He understood immediately.
The System didn’t stop him from upgrading because of a lack of points. Instead, his own body was struggling to keep up with the sudden improvements.
If he continued forcing upgrades without giving himself time to adapt, the consequences probably wouldn’t be pleasant.
That also explained why the previous notification had called it physical instability instead of failure.
Rook closed every status window and sat back down in the chair.
He had already learned enough for one day. He hadn’t fought anything yet — every conclusion so far was theory, tested against an empty corner of a room, not against something that could bite back. But the shape of the System was finally starting to make sense.
Infinite Upgrade Points were every bit as absurd as they sounded, but they weren’t a solution to every problem.
Skills could stack into a ladder of options, yet the strongest rung on that ladder still demanded more mana than he currently had.
Attributes could be raised without worrying about the cost, yet his body still needed time to adjust to those changes.
It wasn’t a perfect cheat, but it was still something no one else in this world possessed.
As long as he understood its limits and didn’t rush blindly, there was no reason he couldn’t become stronger far faster than anyone else in Ashline.
Becoming the strongest had never been his goal.
It was simply the only path toward destroying the Demon Hierarchy.
His goal had now been forced upon him by his predecessor, leaving him to see it through.
As his mind reeled with different thoughts, a knock came from his door.
Without waiting for his permission, the unknown visitor opened the door and walked in.
It was Seryn.
"Come on. Sir is calling us."