James went to his room and closed the door behind him. The space was barely large enough to turn around in with just a bed pushed against one wall, a desk shoved under the cracked window, and water stains spreading across the ceiling like brown maps. He sat down on the bed and picked up the black skill book he'd dropped there earlier.
The skull embossed on the cover caught the light from his cheap desk lamp. James opened the book and found blank pages covered in glowing symbols that shifted and moved like living things. He couldn't read the symbols but he understood what they meant anyway, and the knowledge pushed itself into his head without asking permission—how to gather mana in his palm, how to choose a target corpse, how to make it explode from the inside out.
A System notification appeared in his vision.
[SKILL BOOK DETECTED: CORPSE EXPLOSION (E)]
[LEARN SKILL? Y/N]
James thought YES and the book dissolved in his hands. The pages crumbled into black ash that vanished before it could hit his bedroom floor. Information flooded through his brain like ice water and suddenly he knew exactly how to detonate a corpse, knew how much mana it would cost him, knew how far away he could stand and still make it work. The knowledge didn't belong to him but his brain accepted it like it had always been there.
[SKILL LEARNED: CORPSE EXPLOSION (E)]
[COOLDOWN: 45 SECONDS]
[COST: 30 MANA]
[RANGE: 15 METERS]
[EFFECT: DETONATE TARGET CORPSE - 3 METER BLAST RADIUS]
James opened his System interface and the status window appeared floating in front of his face.
[NAME: JAMES GANNER]
[CLASS: NECROMANCER (LEGENDARY)]
[LEVEL: 3]
[EXP: 32/400]
[HP: 69/198]
[MANA: 90/210]
[STRENGTH: 9]
[AGILITY: 13]
[INTELLIGENCE: 16]
[ENDURANCE: 11]
[LUCK: 8]
[UNSPENT STAT POINTS: 10]
He navigated to his skills tab and the window shifted to show his abilities.
[ACTIVE SKILLS]
Summon Undead Skeleton (C)Necro Blast (C)Corpse Explosion (E)
[PASSIVE SKILLS]
Call of Souls (D)
Letters sat next to each skill name now where there hadn't been any before. James stared at them and tried to remember if they'd been there in the Tutorial, but he was certain they hadn't been. The System had changed something.
A new notification appeared.
[TUTORIAL COMPLETION BONUS: SKILL RANK SYSTEM UNLOCKED]
[SKILLS NOW DISPLAY RANK: F → E → D → C → B → A → S]
[RANK INCREASES THROUGH REPEATED USE AND MASTERY]
[HIGHER RANKS: INCREASED DAMAGE, REDUCED COSTS, IMPROVED EFFECTS]
James read through the notification twice to make sure he understood it. His skills could get stronger just from using them over and over, not just from leveling up. That explained why Summon Undead Skeleton and Necro Blast were both sitting at C-rank after he'd spammed them through the entire Tutorial, while Corpse Explosion started at E-rank because he'd never used it before. Call of Souls was D-rank for reasons the System didn't bother explaining.
Another notification appeared and this one flickered like a broken light bulb.
[ERROR DETECTED]
[LEVEL 2 STAT INCREASE NOT APPLIED]
[CORRECTING...]
[+1 TO ALL STATS]
His status window updated itself while he watched.
[STRENGTH: 9 → 10]
[AGILITY: 13 → 14]
[INTELLIGENCE: 16 → 17]
[ENDURANCE: 11 → 12]
[LUCK: 8 → 9]
[HP: 198 → 216]
[MANA: 210 → 220]
The System had missed his Level 2 stat increase and was fixing it now. James felt the change happen in his body—a slight increase in strength, a bit more speed in his movements, though it was subtle enough that he might have imagined it if the numbers hadn't been right there proving it was real.
James looked at his ten unspent stat points and started doing the math in his head. Necromancer was a mage class which meant Intelligence mattered more than anything else. His INT stat controlled three things—how much damage his magic did, how large his mana pool was, and how many undead he could control at once. The formula for undead control was simple enough that even he could calculate it: Intelligence divided by ten and rounded down. At 17 INT he could only control one skeleton, but if he pushed it to 20 he'd be able to control two at the same time.
He allocated six points into Intelligence and watched the numbers climb.
[INTELLIGENCE: 17 → 23]
[MANA: 220 → 280]
[MAX UNDEAD CONTROLLED: 1 → 2]
Two points went into Agility because being able to dodge and move faster would keep him alive.
[AGILITY: 14 → 16]
The last two points went into Endurance for more HP.
[ENDURANCE: 12 → 14]
[HP: 216 → 232]
James confirmed the allocation and the changes hit him immediately. His body felt lighter when he shifted his weight on the bed, and his thoughts moved faster like someone had cleaned out cobwebs from his brain. He pulled up his full status to check the final numbers.
[NAME: JAMES GANNER]
[CLASS: NECROMANCER (LEGENDARY)]
[LEVEL: 3]
[EXP: 32/400]
[HP: 232/232]
[MANA: 280/280]
[STRENGTH: 10]
[AGILITY: 16]
[INTELLIGENCE: 23]
[ENDURANCE: 14]
[LUCK: 9]
[UNSPENT STAT POINTS: 0]
[ACTIVE SKILLS]
Summon Undead Skeleton (C)Necro Blast (C)Corpse Explosion (E)
[PASSIVE SKILLS]
Call of Souls (D)
James closed the interface and lay back on his bed. He could summon two skeletons now instead of one, had sixty more mana to work with, and wouldn't die as easily if something hit him. The numbers didn't lie—he was measurably stronger than he'd been when he walked out of the Tutorial yesterday.
James closed the System interface and lay back on his bed. Tomorrow he'd need to research Floor 1 and figure out what kind of enemies he'd be facing, then use his remaining Tower Credits to buy whatever gear would keep him alive. The day after that he'd go into the Tower and clear Floor 1, come back to rest and resupply, then do Floor 2. Then Floor 3. He'd keep going until he was strong enough that his mother could quit at least one of her jobs, until he'd climbed past Floor 18 where his father had died, and until his uncles understood exactly what they'd lost when they stole from him.
James turned onto his side and closed his eyes. Sleep took a while to come but eventually it did.