A voice from behind whispered into Zeth’s ear as he walked through the tunnel. “If you go down there, you’ll die.”

He spun around, searching the mineshaft for the person who'd made the ominous statement, but only found a bustling crowd of his guildmates.

“Huh?” he asked. “Who said that?”

They continued pushing past him, none paying his words any heed.

“Hey!” a voice ahead of him shouted. He turned to see the leader of his mining contingent beckoning him forward to the rest of the group. “C’mon. Boss is gonna kill us if this cave-in crap delays the guild even one more day.”

With the shake of his head, Zeth kept moving. It must’ve been a dumb prank or something. And who was to say the person was even talking to him? He might have caught a snippet of someone else’s conversation.

As he caught up to his seven-man team, Nestor looked over to him and sighed. “Sorry to make you do this job last minute. It’s just, you know how Garon is. He heard how long my estimated completion time was and his whole face turned red. Started screaming about how we’re gonna get fired and how our incompetence is gonna cost the guild however much coin. I’ve learned to tune most of his rants out, at this point.”

“Yeah, I know how Garon is,” Zeth scoffed. “He’s a jackass. People like him could benefit from being tied to the back leg of a racehorse and dragged through the street for a few hours.”

“Didn’t you get put on unpaid leave for a week last time you threatened to kill our manager? And don’t you have parents and a sister you provide for with this job?”

“We’ve got a little bit of money saved, I can handle another week off,” Zeth said with a chuckle. Then he frowned. “...By the way, did you hear someone talking to me back there? Something about…I dunno, ‘don’t go down there’ or whatever.”

Nestor frowned, looking over at their fellow teammates, who all shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. Why, you hear something weird?”

“Thought I did. But who knows, maybe I misheard something. Just…try to be careful while we’re investigating this potential cave-in stuff. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we have time to be careful. But Garon promised me up and down that if he even felt the slightest tremor in the ground, he’d send as many mining teams as he could muster to come rescue us within minutes.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll trust Garon’s word when he manages to reprimand a guild member without permanently damaging their ears.”

“I think you give him too much of a hard time,” Nestor said. “He’s tough on us, sure, but you know he’s just as overworked from his higher-ups as we are from him.”

“You don’t see me shouting insults at the ores we dig out of the ground.”

Nestor shrugged. “Seriously, man. I trust him to save us if there’s trouble.”

There was trouble.

Down in the deep reaches of the mine, Zeth found a crack in the wall. It was about two inches wide and webbed all the way up and across the ceiling.

He stared at it. “Hey guys, found something.”

The other six members of his team looked over at him, and Nestor stepped forward, squinting at it.

“...Yeah, looks like a problem. A crack like that probably means we need to reinforce the supports,” he said, slapping his palm against one of the wooden beams lining the stone walls. “If one of ‘em gives out, it could lead to a collapse.”

Zeth nodded, taking out a piece of parchment. “I’ll document this one, you guys move ahead to look for more signs of trouble.”

He started jotting down the dimensions of the crack and where it was located as the others turned and walked off, the sounds of their footsteps echoing down the mineshaft.

But before he could finish, he was blinded by a brilliant flash of light. The entire mineshaft glowed bright red, the deafening sound of crackling electricity filled the cavern, and the ground began to rumble.

He threw his head around to see what was going on, and found the source of the light. Up ahead, his team was grouped up as they walked deeper into the tunnel, but they’d frozen. They were looking down at a massive, intricate circle that’d lit up beneath their feet, drawn on the ground to cover the eight-foot-wide mineshaft’s floor wall-to-wall. Red light blazed across the design.

Before he could think of what to do, all of his guildmates simultaneously began screaming in pain and collapsed to the ground. Pink lightning arced from their skin to the lines of the ritualistic circle painting the stone.

Then, as he watched, they began to sink into the rock. Passing straight through the ground like it was sand, they were being slowly swallowed by the circle. They flailed and shouted as they sank, Nestor clawing at the ground as he tried to find something he could hold onto.

Zeth sprinted over, stumbling slightly because of the shaking ground, and dove forward to grab Nestor’s hand.

“H-help me!” Nestor choked, desperately clenching his hand around Zeth’s. His torso was under the stone at this point.

Zeth yanked as hard as he could, but it was impossible to pull Nestor even an inch out of the ground. Despite pushing his feet against the floor, wrenching at Nestor’s arm with so much force he was afraid he might tear it out of its socket, all his friend did was sink further and further into the stone.

A few feet away, one of his teammates disappeared completely into the stone, his head being completely enveloped. The moment he was gone, the circle began glowing brighter, the electricity crackling louder, and the rumbling growing more intense.

Another passed all the way through. Then another, and another. Each time one did, the magic seemed to grow even more powerful. Zeth couldn’t stand even if he wanted to with the earth quaking around him, his teeth clattering against each other and his eyes feeling like they’d vibrate out of his skull.

Soon, Nestor and Zeth were the only ones left in the room.

“Just…a little…harder!” Zeth screamed through clenched teeth, his arms aching from the strain he was putting them under.

“Please,” Nestor whispered, up to his neck in the stone. His voice was barely audible through the cacophony of noise that surrounded them.. “I-I don’t want to—”

His mouth passed beneath the stone, eyes going wide for a moment before they disappeared, too. Then the rest of his head. The palm of his outstretched hand sank at the same time, and Zeth was left with no more to hold on to. He watched helplessly as the last of Nestor’s fingers were swallowed up.

Nothing was left behind.

The sound stopped instantly. No electricity, no rumbling—it was like the entire world had fallen into a hush. Zeth was left alone in a mineshaft, the glowing light from the ritual circle the only evidence that there was ever anyone else with him.

He climbed to his feet and backed away from the circle, suddenly aware of how close he’d been to touching it that whole time. What would have happened if he did? Would he sink, too?

Then, in the silent cavern, Zeth heard footsteps. They came from behind him, back up the way he’d come.

He turned around, searching for the person making the noise.

“Hello?!” he called, voice ragged. “Who’s out there? We need help!”

The footsteps stopped.

Zeth stepped forward, calling out again, “Please! There’s, there’s been an attack. We need someone who can dig up this stone, and—”

The person started moving again, this time sounding like they were running in Zeth’s direction. As they did, Zeth had a thought.

His guildmates had fallen victim to some sort of strange magic. So wouldn’t the caster be nearby?

A figure rounded the corner, wearing a heavy cloak that obscured their whole body. The person behind the hood stared at Zeth, and he stared back at them. He couldn’t make out their face, but by their body language, they seemed surprised to see him.

It had to be the mage.

The figure sprinted forward, their cloak billowing behind them. Zeth went on-guard, ready for a fight, but he quickly realized they weren’t charging at him, they were desperately running for the ritual circle behind him.

He had no idea what would happen if they got to it, but he knew he was going to keep it from occurring. If they wanted it, he wanted the opposite.

Without a Class, Zeth was at a natural disadvantage against a magic user like this, but he didn’t care. There was no way he was about to let them by without them getting punched in the face at least once.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He stood between the mage and the glowing circle, the red light it emitted casting a long shadow across the mineshaft. They dashed to the side, attempting to go around him to reach it, but he dove forward to tackle them and block their way.

They tried to leap forward to dodge, but were just barely too slow, and Zeth’s hands gripped onto the base of their boot. He caught a glimpse of the logo on the back, and for just a moment, he could make out the words “Otis & Roul’s Mining Guild.” The same guild he worked for. But before he could process the implications of that, Zeth’s face slammed into the ground, the mage falling helplessly forward as Zeth continued to grip tightly onto their leg.

He crawled forward, eager to throw his fist into this person’s nose, but before he could, they lifted a hand and pointed it at him, exposing a small slice on their palm. A bullet of blood shot out of the cut in their skin, aimed directly for his forehead. He just barely twisted to the side in time to avoid it colliding with his skull, but it still hit his cheek, and instead of harmlessly splashing against him like any normal liquid would do, it cut straight across his face, leaving a line of pain and the feeling of his own blood leaking from the wound as the mage scrambled to their feet.

Not letting himself stay stunned for more than a moment, Zeth leapt up and chased after them. They were just a few feet away from the ritual circle now, with Zeth too far behind to stop them. They were going to reach it.

He couldn’t let that happen.

Acting before thinking, Zeth lunged forward, shoving the mage away from himself as he took their place. He flew through the air straight toward the glowing ritual circle, and then impacted the painted lines on the stone floor.

Instantly upon touching the circle, he felt the room start shaking again—more intensely than it ever had before. Electricity latched onto Zeth, and the lines began glowing even brighter. For a moment, he was worried he might start sinking into the floor like everyone else had. But he stayed safely on top of the ground, the pink electricity dancing harmlessly across his skin.

The mage sat up from where they’d landed a few feet away, staring at Zeth. Whatever emotion they were feeling was indecipherable to him since he couldn’t see their face, but they certainly didn’t seem happy.

Trying to climb to his feet, Zeth suddenly realized he couldn't move his body. He was frozen there, lying on the trembling ground.

The mage stood and took a step forward, but a boulder dropped from the quaking ceiling just as they moved, almost crushing them beneath it. They stumbled away as more rocks fell, covering the ground and threatening to pull the entire mineshaft down. The rumbling from the ritual circle only grew more and more intense.

Between the falling rubble, Zeth could see the mage glance at him for a long moment, then turn and run away, seeming to value their life more than whatever this circle could bring them.

Just as another boulder fell and plugged up the gap in the rocks that allowed Zeth to see the mage, the pain started. It was like the electricity that should have been hurting him all along suddenly decided to make up for lost time, shooting liquid fire through his veins. Only, he was still paralyzed, so he was stuck lying motionless on the ground, his wide eyes the only indication he was feeling anything at all. Every section of skin the dancing lightning touched was plunged into agony, and each second the sensation only grew more intense.

Soon, as the rumbling seemed to reach a crescendo, the pain became too much to bear. It’d reached his head now, squeezing his brain into a pulp. He couldn’t think, or feel, or perceive the world around him in any way. Just sit and feel the ritual as it seemed to reject his body in the most violent way possible.

And then, the world went black.

Zeth was surprised when he awoke, because he hadn’t expected he ever would.

He sat up, groggily rubbing his eyes and glancing around only to find that the world around him was pitch-black. There was some sort of System message in the back of his mind, but he currently faced a much more pressing question. Where was he?

Still completely disoriented, he felt around himself, rubbing his aching hands across the cool stone floor. Every bit of his body ached, actually, like he was moving rusted machinery that hadn’t functioned in centuries. His finger bumped against a glass object, and he grabbed it. It was his lantern. Feeling across its surface and letting muscle memory take over, he twisted the dials and knobs to configure the guild-standard magic object, soon seeing its glow light up the area, flickering slightly as it still needed to be fine-tuned.

In front of Zeth was a collapsed pile of stone and gravel. It completely filled the mineshaft, spilling across the tunnel and coming close to touching his feet. He remembered now. There’d been a cave-in, which now blocked his way back up. And before the cave-in, there had been…

He glanced downward, seeing a dark red chalk marking the ground below him in ridiculously intricate symbols. Instantly, he leapt to his feet and dove out of the circle, tumbling to the safe ground by his side. Dust was kicked up by his every motion, his own body covered just as much as everything else.

Looking back, though, the circle no longer seemed active. It looked, really, like a totally mundane drawing someone had made on the floor. Not a dangerous piece of magic capable of…what it had done.

Zeth’s mind forced him to remember. His guildmates—Nestor, and everyone else—had died. He had failed to save them. And, upon seeing the person who may very well have been the one to personally set up this circle, he failed to avenge them, too.

And now, he was sitting in an underground tunnel, nothing he could do but remember everything he could have done differently. If he’d been the one to go ahead of them, he might have triggered the trap instead. If he’d only recognized who those footsteps belonged to before he said anything, he could have set up some sort of ambush. If he’d just listened to the voice telling him not to go down here in the first place, then…

Zeth blinked.

Someone had told him not to come down here. That person knew someone was going to kill him and his guildmates. Why hadn’t they done anything? Stopped Zeth and told him exactly what was going on, gone and told Garon about the situation, hell, they could’ve come down here personally to help fight that son of a bitch mage. So why whisper a vague warning in Zeth’s ear and refuse to elaborate?

The System message itched the back of his mind once again. For a moment, he wanted to ignore it and continue trying to figure out his situation, but he decided against that. The message might’ve told him what had happened when he’d passed out, or even just informed him of a new useful Skill unlock. He’d be foolish to ignore it any longer.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the itching in his brain.

[Ritual complete: Ancient Evolution.

Over a duration of three years, you have fed sacrifices to the ritual and claimed the completed circle.

Sacrifice given: 666 human lives.

Unlocking evolved version of Blood Mage Class.]

Zeth stared at the notification. It thought he was the one who completed the ritual? He’d…fed sacrifices to it? He thought back to when he was holding onto Nestor’s hand, trying desperately to pull him out. Or maybe when he told them to move ahead while he documented the crack in the wall. Did the System really think he’d done this?

He almost threw up. Being labeled as such a thing—as a monster that would participate in this magic—he wanted nothing to do with it. He hadn’t ‘fed’ anyone to anything. The mere idea of killing so many people just for some—what was it, Zeth thought as he glanced back at the notification—for some evolved version of your Class? That was what his friends had died for? And this had been going on for how many years? To how many people in total?

Rage seeped into Zeth’s mind.

At least that fucker didn’t get what they wanted, he thought, opening his Status and looking at his unlocked Classes.

Sure enough, there it was.

[Ready to claim!

Blood Magus

Rarity: S (Stats per Level: 13)

Time left to claim: 3 minutes, 12 seconds.]

The time left to claim was just over three minutes. Since newly-unlocked Classes gave you one hour to decide whether or not you wanted to claim them, that meant he’d been knocked out for close to that full hour duration. He didn’t think it would’ve been possible to stay knocked out for fifty-seven minutes just from something like getting hit on the head by a rock, but…Well, what had knocked him out? He couldn’t remember anything specific, so maybe it was part of whatever this strange magic was.

The timer ticked below three minutes. A little longer, and it’d be gone forever. He just wished that time would come sooner; he wanted nothing more than to get rid of this marker of what had happened.

Obviously, he wasn’t about to claim the damn thing. A Class like that, using human sacrifices to fuel its powers, was off the table. Sure, its Rarity was—good gods, S? That was…high. He supposed it only made sense the Class would be so high-quality, given the horrible things a person was required to do to complete that heinous ritual.

Most of his guildmates had taken the Miner Class—something Zeth only avoided because he didn’t want to lock himself into working for a mining guild for the rest of his life. But the Miner Class’s Rarity was the lowest a Class could be—E—so it would give its holder three Stats every time they increased its Level. Blood Magus, an S-Rarity Class, gave thirteen. Remembering the amazing things his guildmates could do with a Class that was literally less than a quarter as good as this one, Zeth couldn’t help but imagine.

He shook his head. No. No, it wasn’t even worth considering. He needed a Class that could make him money, something that could give him decent job prospects. Sure, this Blood Magus thing would give him a ton of Stats, and the quality of its Skills would probably be pretty insane, too, but if they all required human sacrifices like that, then it simply wouldn’t be usable. And besides, a Class like that was probably outlawed to begin with; he’d be arrested if it ever got out that he had it.

If he wanted to go around slaughtering people, it’d be supremely useful. But to live a quiet, normal life? Did he really want to end up like the mage, killing people to get stronger?

Zeth’s face twisted in anger at the memory. His friend’s bloodcurdling scream choked out as they sank through solid stone, consumed by the ritualistic magic. Human lives, given in exchange for some Class. Fucking murderer.

That mage was still out there. They’d gotten away without consequence. Even if Zeth could find them, how could he prove anything legally? It would be one person’s word against another’s. And he wasn’t confident he’d be able to take them down in a fight. They hadn’t used any extremely powerful magic in their scuffle—other than that ritual that ate his guildmates—but even then, the Stats and Skills offered by a Class would put them at a massive advantage, and he didn’t think he’d be able to catch them by surprise again.

…But if he had this powerful Class, he may still be able to deliver judgment.

The time left to claim passed below one minute. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for power. If he passed it up, could he ever forgive himself for letting his friends’ killer escape? And if he didn’t get strong enough to protect himself soon, that person might hunt him down to tie up loose ends.

Zeth closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the part of his mind screaming at him to avoid having anything to do with this thing.

He filled his heart with resolve…

Whoever you are, I will make the little bit of life you have left absolutely miserable.

And he claimed the Class.

[Class Slot 1 has been filled. You are now a Blood Magus.

Use rituals, demons, and the magic of the occult to slaughter your enemies. Use the corpses of your enemies to fuel yourself and gain more power. Use your power to subjugate the world.

The Blood Magus Class is one-of-a-kind, only able to be held by a single person at a time. For the Blood Magus, the lowly rituals of a Blood Mage have had their limitations removed, your contact with the Thirteenth Realm has been made permanent, and your Level-ups will grant exclusive world-shaping Skills.

The Blood Magus is fated to be a lord reigning over the lesser Blood Mages. A lord reigning over the entire world.

What will you do with your potential?]