All Asher could perceive was darkness.
His consciousness had already faded, and his body had reached its limit.
But the world did not care.
The awakening process had already begun.
[Congratulations. You have killed a Level 10 Mutated Beast.]
[You have gained 200 EXP.]
[Congratulations. Your awakening has begun.]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[Your body is in critical condition.]
[Awakening cannot proceed.]
[Searching for a solution.]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[High-level blood essence detected nearby.]
[Absorbing blood essence to assist the awakening process.]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[Absorption has begun.]
[ERROR]
[Restarting awakening process.]
[Attempt 1 has failed.]
[Attempt 2 has failed.]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[Attempt ??? has succeeded.]
[Congratulations. You have successfully awakened.]
[Warning.]
[Blood energy overload detected.]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[Converting blood essence into user’s bloodline.]
[Bloodline creation attempt 1 has failed.]
[Attempt 2...]
[Attempt...]
[Failed.]
[Absorbing remaining blood essence to continue the awakening.]
[Attempt 1...]
[Attempt 2...]
[Attempt ??? has succeeded.]
[Congratulations.]
[You have awakened the Primordial Devourer Bloodline.]
[Recalibrating body to match newly acquired power.]
[Reconstructing body.]
[Body adaptation complete.]
[Congratulations. You have leveled up.]
[You have gained 3 free stat points.]
[Congratulations. You have leveled up.]
[You have gained 2 free stat points.]
[Congratulations. You have awakened your first element.]
[Element Obtained: Darkness.]
[Awakening process complete.]
⸻
While all of this happened, Asher remained unconscious.
Time passed.
After nearly an hour...
His consciousness slowly returned.
The first thing he felt was pain.
A sharp pain exploded inside his head, as if his skull were about to split apart.
He immediately clutched his head and forced himself to sit up.
But then he noticed something strange.
His body...
It was completely healed.
The injuries that should have left him unable to move were gone.
More than that...
His body felt lighter than before.
Stronger.
A transparent screen suddenly appeared before his eyes.
He knew what it was.
He had heard that when someone awakened, they could view their own power through a Status Screen.
A thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Did... I awaken?
The memories of what had happened quickly returned.
He had killed that bastard.
Then he lost consciousness.
Asher immediately looked around.
The blood river...
It was gone.
"What happened to the blood river?" he muttered.
His gaze then fell upon the corpse of the monster lying at his feet.
He lightly kicked it.
It didn’t move.
At the same time, he could clearly feel that his body was much stronger than before.
"So... it’s true."
"I really am an Awakener."
Without hesitation, he spoke.
"Status."
A luminous transparent screen appeared before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Asher
Age: 15
Level: 2
EXP: 0/300
Race: Human
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ATTRIBUTES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 5
Agility: 4
Vitality: 6
Mana: 3
Spirit: 4
Intelligence: 8
Perception: 7
Luck: ??? (Cannot be determined by common means.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FREE STAT POINTS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Available Points: 5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ELEMENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Darkness
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BLOODLINE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Primordial Devourer Bloodline
Rank: Unknown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BLOODLINE EXCLUSIVE SKILLS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Devour
Allows the user to absorb the essence of monsters personally killed by the user.
Restrictions:
• The amount absorbed depends on the target’s strength.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I stared at the Status Screen.
The first things that caught my attention were my bloodline and my level.
Level 2?
Shouldn’t every Awakener start at Level 1?
Is it because I killed that bastard?
And... where did this bloodline come from?
Suppressing my confusion, I carefully read every line on the Status Screen.
By the time I finished, I had a basic understanding of how it worked.
My eyes then moved to my available stat points.
Without hesitation, I allocated them.
Strength: 5 → 6
Agility: 4 → 5
Vitality: 6
Mana: 3 → 5
Spirit: 4 → 5
Intelligence: 8
Perception: 7
Luck: ???
After allocating my points, I walked over to the monster’s corpse and pulled my old dagger from its head.
Then I placed my hand on the corpse.
"Devour."
Nothing happened.
I tried again.
Still nothing.
I tried several more times, but the result was the same.
Then I closed my eyes.
Instead of saying the skill’s name, I focused on it.
A moment later...
A notification appeared before me.
[Absorbed 1 Agility.]
[Absorbed 1 Spirit.]
When I realized what this ability actually did...
I couldn’t hide my surprise.
Finally, I decided to leave the massive cavern.
I didn’t take the monster’s corpse with me.
I had no idea whether it was valuable, and even if it was, there was no way I could drag such a large body all the way out.
So I left it behind.
After allocating my stat points, I could clearly feel the difference.
My strength had increased.
My movements were much faster than before.
In fact...
They were too fast.
I couldn’t properly control my own body.
Every movement felt unfamiliar.
So I spent some time adjusting to my newfound strength and agility, testing my body until I gradually became accustomed to it.
Only then did I crawl back through the narrow crack.
A moment later...
I stepped into the Monster Forest once again.
As I wandered through the forest, I felt something I thought I would never experience again.
Confidence.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t thinking about how to survive another day.
Instead...
I found myself thinking about the future.
Maybe I could become stronger.
Maybe I could even have a goal worth chasing.
The feeling was exhilarating.
The first thing I decided to do was find something to eat.
After all, becoming an Awakener didn’t magically fill my stomach.
As I searched the forest, I stumbled upon something unexpected.
A group of Awakeners was locked in battle against a pack of wolves.
As a good citizen...
I quietly hid behind a bush and watched.
Even a slum rat like me knew it was rude to interrupt people while they were fighting.
So I patiently waited for one side to win.
My stomach growled loudly.
I patted it and whispered,
"Relax. You’ll be eating soon."
Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long.
The wolves won.
The humans were all dead.
Only two wolves remained alive, and one of them was badly injured. The last human had thrown his life away to inflict a serious wound before dying.
Throughout the entire battle, I remained hidden inside the bush.
After all...
I was a polite man.
It would have been rude to interrupt them.
The moment the battle ended, I tightened my grip on my dagger and rushed forward.
Using my newly gained speed and strength, I launched a sneak attack at the healthier wolf.
My dagger sank into its body, leaving behind a deep wound.
The two wolves immediately turned toward me.
A tense standoff began.
My dagger was already in terrible condition from my previous fight, so I gripped it tightly and prepared myself.
The healthier wolf lunged at me.
I blocked the attack...
Crack.
My dagger finally gave up and shattered.
I looked at the broken blade in my hand.
"...Well."
I did what any sensible person would do.
I picked up the sword lying beside one of the fallen Awakeners.
I cleared my throat and spoke solemnly.
"Don’t worry, brother."
"I’ll avenge your death."
"I won’t let the murderers who killed you live another day."
"I shall carry your sword into battle and honor your sacrifice."
"May your soul rest in peace."
I even gave myself a thumbs-up.
What a great guy I am.
With my newly borrowed sword in hand...
I charged at the two wolves.