Name: Sora Sieghart
Race: Human
Age: 16
Level: 0
EXP: 315 / 1,000
Spiritual Core: [Mist — 0%]
Class: Classless
Unique Skill:
Akashic Records — EX
This skill grants the user access to a library containing records of every skill that has ever existed or ever will.
The user may take a card bearing their chosen skill and absorb it, using it at no cost to [Spiritual Energy]. In exchange, each skill will have a set cooldown.
Each skill will occupy a skill slot until its cooldown has expired.
Restriction: Can only be used on F-Rank skills.
Class Skills 0/5:
Passives 3/3:
[Small Inventory — F Rank]
The user can automatically store materials in a pocket dimension of 5×5 meters and retrieve them at will.
They can also store any object they come into physical contact with and take it out whenever they choose.
[Small EXP Buff — F Rank]
Grants a 5% bonus to all experience gained from killing enemies.
[Small Drop Rate Buff — F Rank]
Increases the drop rate of materials, chest rewards, and monster loot by 3%.
Attributes:
H.P: 100/100
S.E: 100/100
Strength: 6
Constitution: 5
Speed: 7
Agility: 4
Intelligence: 7(+1)
Points to distribute: 0
[Attack Power: 0.7 +(0.2)]
___
"Not bad for a start," Sora said calmly as he read through his status screen.
His skill was absurdly overpowered, no question about it. Even limited to F rank abilities, it was incredibly versatile.
Especially when it came to the passive bonuses he could stack.
Passive skills were independent of class. They were usually obtained through skill books or special items, both of which were valuable on their own. The advantages they offered were significant.
Even so, none of that quite compared to what a high-ranking class brought to the table.
A Rank B class came with a flat 5% experience bonus. Rank A pushed that to 25%.
Permanent, and taking up no slot.
It only got more absurd from there. A Rank S class gave a 50% experience bonus on top of certain attributes gaining extra points automatically every time you leveled up.
That kept scaling until you hit SSS, where the experience multiplier sat at 350%.
Still, Sora wasn't complaining. His skill was far more versatile than any of those bonuses, and its potential ceiling was borderline ridiculous.
"Alright, let's keep leveling," he said to himself, calm and unhurried, as he kept walking through the meadow.
This was the [Rookie Territory], made up of a wide open prairie, scattered villages, and a handful of caves.
Beyond the blue mountains lay the [Beginner Territory], which could only be accessed once a person's spiritual core reached the [Ash] stage. The spiritual pressure there was toxic to a weak soul.
The path forward was straightforward: level up, advance your core stage, then pass the ascension trial inside one of the temples to push your core to the next evolution.
"[Fireball]!" a voice shouted in the distance.
Grass singed as the burning sphere passed over it, then slammed into a gray-furred wolf that let out a yelp cut short by the blast.
Sora turned. Somewhere in the distance, a group of Awakened seemed to be in the middle of a fight.
"[Archer's Sight]," he said.
A ring of green light contracted over his pupils, sharpening his vision until it felt like zooming in with a lens.
With that, he could make out a group of three.
At the front, a broad-shouldered, stocky young man was holding the line as the tank. He wore leather armor reinforced with metal studs that caught the sunlight, and with a sharp motion of his arm, he deflected a wolf that had tried to leap at him.
Behind the cover of his shield, the air shimmered with heat. A boy with vivid red hair, dressed in an ochre tunic with gold trim, stood with fingers still smoking from the spell he'd just cast.
Orbiting around him was a scarlet sphere, a smooth circular gem set inside a golden exoskeleton of interlocking arcs. A catalyst, built to amplify his magic.
To his left, a girl watched the fight with a tense, uncertain expression. Her dark hair was pulled into a neat braid that fell down her back, swaying in the light breeze.
Between her fingers she held a slender silver staff topped with a gem that pulsed with a pale white glow. The contrast of her white robe against the churned-up ground, along with the slight tremor in her body, made her look completely out of place.
[T0m-54: Look at that! A standard balanced party. That's how you're supposed to face the Spiritual Realm.]
[Yul1_087: The girl with the staff looks a little nervous. She's a priestess too! She reminds me so much of myself when I was starting out.]
[0n_Kn15T: You can tell she's new, though the other two seem pretty solid for rookies.]
Sora's brow furrowed behind his mask as he deactivated [Archer's Sight].
He'd recognized them.
Ethan, Darian, and Clara.
Fate apparently had a twisted sense of humor, crossing his path with his own classmates this soon. His first instinct was to turn around and walk the other way. There was nothing to be gained from getting tangled up with Ethan's ego, or the rest of them by extension.
But then Ethan decided to put on a show.
"Ha! Let's see how this handles it. [Fire Vortex]!" Ethan announced, his voice dripping with that grating self-satisfaction, throwing his arms up without warning.
The catalyst pulsed with an intense scarlet glow.
Fwooosh!
The grass beneath the wolves ignited, giving way to a spiraling column of fire that roared upward with a deafening surge. The flames blazed so bright that the shadows of all three stretched out long and distorted across the ground.
The wolves caught in the rising current were sucked upward, their bodies thrashing uselessly before being reduced to ash.
[T0m-54: Holy cow! Isn't that a D rank spell?? He cast it so fast! This guy is build diferent.]
[0n_Kn15T: He must have some kind of spiritual energy buff. With a Mist-stage core, that spell should run around 250 units of spiritual energy. A level one rookie shouldn't have that to spare.]
[T4mal_07: ok fine, I'll admit it's impressive for a first run. Still a waste of spiritual energy on a pack of regular gray wolves tho.]
But in the middle of the pyrotechnics, one member of the group broke formation.
Clara, startled by the sudden burst of light, stumbled backward. The hem of her white robe caught under her boot and threw off her balance.
"Kyaah!" Her cry was swallowed by the crackling of the fire as she went down.
At that same moment, a gray wolf with fur still smoldering, one that had managed to slip around the vortex, seized its chance.
The beast launched itself in a sharp arc, snapping its jaws around the silver staff Clara threw up as a last defense. The metal groaned under the pressure of its teeth.
"Help!" she cried, panic widening her eyes.
Ethan was still recovering from the recoil of the large-scale spell. He'd burned through too much energy.
Darian had been distracted, and didn't react in time.
[0n_Kn15T: Another rookie mistake. Don't show off in the middle of a fight.]
Then a sharp whistle cut through the air. A flash of pale blue, razor-edged and cold, crossed the meadow like a shard of crystal. An ice stake, scattering sunlight into a thousand blue glints, struck the wolf in the throat with surgical precision.
The projectile punched through flesh and bone before the beast could close its jaws around the girl's neck. The animal dissolved into a gray mist before it ever hit the ground.
[+105 EXP] [+2 Gray Wolf Fang] [+1 Gray Wolf Hide]
Silence settled over the meadow, broken only by the faint crackle of scorched grass.
Ethan, Darian, and Clara turned their heads in unison toward where the spell had come from.
There, wrapped in a black coat with a wooden mask hiding his expression, Sora stood with his arm still extended, the last traces of frost evaporating from his fingertips.