Name: Sora Sieghart
Race: Human
Age: 16
Level: 2
EXP: 525 / 3,000
Spiritual Core: [Mist — 10%]
Class: Classless
Unique Skill: [Akashic Records — EX]
Class Skills 0/5:
Passives 3/3: [Small Inventory — F Rank] [Small EXP Buff — F Rank] [Small Drop Rate Buff — F Rank]
Attributes:
H.P: 140/140
S.E: 100/100
Strength: 7
Constitution: 7
Speed: 7
Agility: 7
Intelligence: 7(+1)
Points to distribute: 0
[Attack Power: 0.8 +(0.2)]
___
Sora nodded as he read through his status.
"Perfectly balanced, as all things should be," he said calmly.
Slow but steady progress. He'd decided to start investing in his H.P as well; the fight with the Elite Lunar Boar had made that point for him.
That stat mattered more than he'd given it credit for.
He was also mulling over whether to invest in his spiritual energy.
On one hand, the answer seemed obvious. His skill let him access multiple abilities, and none of them consumed spiritual energy.
But he knew each skill could be upgraded.
Spells, for instance, could be enhanced by consuming an [Arcane Rune]. A level two Fireball grew stronger the more spiritual energy you poured into it.
So it wasn't hard to see that spiritual energy would matter down the line.
"No, that's not something I need to worry about yet. I haven't upgraded a single spell," he said aloud. "For now, let's see if I can reach a village."
His eyes, still carrying that vivid electric violet glow, fixed on the horizon.
There, where the plain began folding into low hills, the silver moonlight traced the silhouettes of wood and stone structures rising in the distance.
Nothing more than a handful of thatched rooftops and chimneys breathing thin ribbons of gray smoke, but it was the first sign of civilization in this hostile world, if you could even call it that.
No one really knew who the inhabitants of the Spiritual Realm were, though most people treated them like NPCs in a video game.
The walk to the village was quiet, accompanied only by the steady rhythm of crickets. As he drew closer, the voices of other Awakened started drifting on the night breeze.
He crossed the village boundary, a row of wooden stakes that wouldn't have done much against any real monster.
Inside, the atmosphere was mixed. Groups of young people gathered around improvised bonfires, some boasting about their daytime exploits, others wrapping their wounds with the blank expressions of people who'd had a rough first day.
No one paid much attention to the boy in the wooden mask, which suited Sora just fine.
He made his way along the main path, a packed dirt road, until something caught his eye. Along the side of a sturdy log cabin stood an open-air forge.
At its heart was a bed of glowing coals surrounded by a ring of volcanic stones blackened from use. The heat rolling off the embers tinted the air a dense, warm orange.
Beside it, a whetstone mounted on a wooden frame creaked faintly in the wind, its surface worn smooth from countless blades. A solid iron anvil, set on an oak stump, dominated the center of the space, its top polished from years of hammer strikes and gleaming faintly in the moonlight. A wooden bucket of standing water and a pair of tongs leaned against a work table, completing the picture of an old and unforgiving craft.
"Hmm. Might be worth upgrading my dagger," Sora said, stopping to let the heat wash over him.
With a gesture, he materialized the weapon between his fingers. Holding it up to the firelight made its condition impossible to ignore.
The common iron dagger, which had started out a functional matte gray, now looked like little more than scrap metal.
The blade had a visible bend to one side, likely warped under the pressure it had taken against the Elite Lunar Boar's bones.
The joint between the blade and the handle was loose; with a slight twist of his wrist, Sora felt the tang shifting inside the grip, a clear sign that one more hard impact would split them apart entirely.
Even the tip, built for piercing, had curved slightly after driving into the beast's skull.
It was a small miracle it hadn't snapped during the final charge. That piece of iron had saved his life, but it had nothing left to give.
Sora looked at the glow of the coals, then back at the battered steel.
"Alright. I know what I'm doing," he said quietly.
His fingers closed around the handle with a renewed firmness. The forge fire lit up the blade, and in his violet eyes the dancing flames were reflected, casting long, sharp shadows across his mask.
He set the dagger carefully on the anvil and picked up the hammer resting against the side.
He adjusted his grip, feeling the weight of the metal settle into his right hand. The heat from the coals threw shifting shadows across the anvil as he prepared.
First, he summoned the cards he would need for what he was about to do: [Impurity Removal — F Rank] and [Basic Repair — F Rank].
"[ᛒᛅᛏᛅ]," he said in a firm voice.
Above the bent and chipped blade, a series of luminous runes materialized, hovering in the air like fragments of incandescent crystal giving off a clean white light.
Sora raised the hammer and struck with precise, deliberate force, directly onto the symbols. With each impact, the runes sank into the iron, merging with the structure of the weapon.
A white flash swept across the surface, driving out flecks of rust and straightening the bent tip as though the metal was remembering its original shape.
Without breaking his rhythm, he moved into the next phase.
"[ᚴᛁᚱᛅ ᚢᛁᚦ]."
New runes in a faint yellow tone rose from the steel.
The hammer fell again, sealing the microfractures and stabilizing the joint between blade and handle.
Within seconds, the common iron dagger had an edge it hadn't possessed even when it was new.
"Perfect. Now for the next step," Sora said, letting a small smile slip behind his mask.
Though he was, admittedly, a little nervous.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out the [Elite Lunar Boar Tusk].
The ivory piece was striking, the golden metal clasp still fixed to it, catching the light of the forge with a pale shimmer.
He knew what he was about to attempt was a gamble. To improve his odds, he swapped out two of his passive skills: one that refined his forging technique to raise his success rate by five percent, and another that, in a vaguer way, nudged luck slightly in his favor by the same margin.
Finally, he equipped [Basic Item Reinforcement — F Rank].
The skill allowed him to fuse an object with a material to enhance it, though at such a low rank the base success rate was only 50% with common items.
The problem was he wanted to fuse a common item with an [Uncommon] material, which brought that rate down to a dangerous 35%.
That was exactly why the two passives were necessary, to pull the odds back toward something reasonable.
He placed the tusk on the cold surface of the anvil and set the dagger on top of it.
"[ᚠᛅᛋᛏᛅ]."
The runes appeared, pulsing with a scarlet light.
Sora raised the hammer above his head, pouring all of his focus into that single motion. The steel came down, striking the red runes in a burst of scarlet and gold sparks that briefly lit up the entire village.
Had the fusion failed?