The hospital bed was more comfortable than I expected. That, and the fact that I still felt a little bit sleepy.
Lena had asked me to check my notification and just like she had informed, there was indeed a message.
No surprise there though, I had exceeded the side quest required kill count but I was already unconscious before I could get the chance to properly observe the rewards the system gave me.
'Now would be a good time.'
"System."
A blue screen materialized in front of me, floating just a distance from my eye level.
Then I froze.
"No way!"
No friggin way.
I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming and sure enough… I wasn't.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ STATUS WINDOW ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Kang Tae-Min
Alias: Alistar
Level: 1
Race: Human
Class: Classless
Sponsor: None.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TITLE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Blood Slayer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ STATS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP (Health): 100 / 100
MP (Mana): 50 / 50
S/P (Stat points) 10/50
STR (Strength): 5
AGI (Agility): 5
VIT (Vitality): 5
INT (Intelligence): 5
PER (Perception): 5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ INVENTORY ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Weapon Ticket ×1
• Character Skin ×1
[ Empty Slots: 8 ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My eyes didn't read through the character profile on my status screen, no… they lingered directly at the inventory or rather the part which displayed the character skin.
If my thoughts were correct—which it definitely was.
The moment I equipped it, I would look exactly the same as my character in the game.
While the other rewards were beneficial and even better than I expected, the character skin was what I needed at this moment.
To normal players without fundamental knowledge on the game, this was just a means to look surreal, at least for those who didn't like their face.
Not like I could relate, I adored my face more than anything in this world but that aside, most people wouldn't be able to grasp the importance of what the game had given them.
The difference between life and death in an intense battle is merely a single slip up.
Even a blink could potentially be the cause for your death.
Martial artists trained their movements to familiarize themselves with their body, now what if a renowned martial artist suddenly woke up in the body of another, maybe someone taller or perhaps shorter.
They would likely die or sustain life threatening wounds should they ever meet a deadly opponent because they simply were not accustomed to the current body they possessed.
A subconscious movement, a precise reaction in the wrong body? That was all it took to send them to the afterlife.
Imagine trying to hit an opponent when your current body was smaller than the original, you would likely miscalculate the distance it would take for your fist to reach them out of instinct and a well trained opponent wouldn't hesitate to end you using that tiny opportunity.
In truth what I was trying to say was, if I had to deal with the bloodlings again with my character skin, I would sustain fewer injuries and my movements would be several times more accurate than what my normal body would have accomplished.
While the strength behind the attacks would remain the same, I could easily compensate for that by doubling the attacks.
My eyes darted across the room, checking if there were any cameras within it.
Once I confirmed they were none, I closed the window blinds then locked the door.
Just to be sure, I ran into the restroom, directly in front of a large mirror, adored my face for a second or two… then my lips parted.
"Equip, character skin."
The moment I said those words, my appearance changed instantly.
Not only that but I felt like a completely different person.
'Right… character synchronization.'
It made sense as well, we were asked to give our characters traits and of all the traits I could've chosen for Alistar, I chose two of the worst.
'Battle maniac and unyielding.'
Those two traits were what made my character one of the most dangerous amongst the rest.
The first made me crave battle from stronger opponents the same way a businessman full of avarice would chase money while the second basically made it impossible for me to yield, be it a dangerous boss character with an Aura enough to make my knees weak, I would not kneel nor give it the satisfaction of seeing my expression crumble.
Overall I was a prideful battle junkie.
"Hah… hahaha"
A laugh escaped my lips.
The entire situation was perfect, no… it was better than that.
For the first time in a while I found a purpose, I didn't want to wither away and slowly wait until death comes from me.
I wanted to conquer the tower, this real version of it, and I knew exactly how to do it because I had experienced enough failure to get to the position of the third world ranker.
"Life just got a whole lot more interesting."
But first…
I had something I needed to do.
****
"Are you ready?"
A cold voice asked, reverberating through the dark room.
"Yes, but are you sure it will work, how certain are you that the one who gave you that Intel isn't trolling us." Came another voice, this one softer and a bit uncertain yet it held a certain gravelly tone.
The other voice didn't respond immediately, for a few seconds there was an unnerving silence but it didn't last too long.
"Just do as you were told, if the Intel is correct then you'll gain Zeus' favor and don't forget, our goal is to steal the abilities of the top rankers, if you pull this off you'll have Alistar's abilities all to yourself, now quit complaining and go get yourself ready, there's barely an hour left until the construction stream event starts."
"B-But… Do I have to do 'that' to gain Zeus' favor? I'm not sure my reputation can handle such a hit."
"Hah…" a silent exhale sounded and the air dropped a few degrees. "What does it matter when you have the power to silence them? Don't question the orders you've been given, remember why this alliance was created in the first place, if you want to pull out then you can go, but remember 'They will find you, and they will end you."