> There are two different sets of color on the stat menu, so try your best to not confuse between the colors. For weapons, armors, accessories, normal skills, and Flair skills, the color code is as follows: Basic, Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythical. For Flair element and general Type, the color indicates the main element of the owner of the stat: Fire, Water, Air, Wave, Nature, Metal, Crystal, Psychic, Chemical, Artifact, Enhancement, Energy, Shapeshift, Earth, and Others.

Excerpt from "Battle Stats and How to Interpret Them"

Eugene De Lavet

Stay away from the darkwood. I can't recall the number of times General Rizeni has told us this. He's warned us about the darkwood so often that people who have never been there like Leviathan and Melodi started parroting him.

Now that I'm inside the darkwood, I realize that the General has been right all along. Stay away from the darkwood. It smells like mildew and animal feces.

As we jaunt through the forest, I take in the surroundings. Slabs of snow-like mold begrime the barks, milky slime oozing from below the lumps. Most of the branches look similar to thorny, convulsed skeleton claws. Some of them are also that way, but shorter, so they only kinda look like pieces of beef jerky.

I run towards the towering man walking a distance ahead and tap on his shoulder. "Hey Captain. Do you ever feel like the dead leaves here are trying to suck us underground? It's unbelievable how damper it is here compared to just outside the darkwood."

The Captain says nothing, so I keep pestering him. "Hey Captain. You've been outside of the forest before, right? Have you ever been to a scary ghost house? I heard they look exactly like this place, but scary."

Azra stops on track, and my forehead smashes on his back. As I groan in annoyance and rub my nose, he takes his glowing Distortion Orb from his pant pocket then shakes it. The orb stops radiating, and soon, a green, vine-strapped Soulbound Companion appears on top of it.

"Greetings, Mr. Kolkov. How might I be of service today?" The companion gives Azra a slight nod. Azra has made it clear on more than one occasion that his relationship with his Okra is purely professional. I have never seen him summoning his SC for a chat over morning tea or to accompany him on a relaxing walk. Every time Okra appears, it's for one thing only: stat menus.

"Greetings, Okra. Please search your database for Ethereal Bolthound, level 300."

"Right away."

"Do you have Ethereal Boltbound in your database?" I ask Lek.

He replies with a scoff. "Have you ever fought something at a level higher than 100 before? I think not. You know we can only retrieve stats of the things we've already encountered."

The stat menu glows in front of our faces again, and I squint my eyes to look at the tables. Okra has filtered out physical stats and only keeps Flair abilities on the menu.

"Look at the two abilities at the top," says Azra as he points upward. "We don't have much time, so I'll only go through these once."

"Then you should've gone though this yesterday. Or maybe the diligent Captain Azra is too busy to spend time with lowly me?" Which is not that far from the truth. Azra doesn't even show up that much, but he always nag us about how we need to train hard when he does. But he isn't even around, so usually it's Melodi and myself training together under his general instruction. Another officer, Groundskeeper Tamara Nneke, tends to our training a few days a week, and she helps more in a week than Azra in a month.

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I follow the direction in which his finger points.

Supercharge LV 282 Reserves Cost 540 Speed Boost 35% Duration 7s Cooldown 7s

Ethereal Tirade LV 240 Reserves Cost 8888 Area of Effect 20m Damage 1888 Special Effect Disable all Water, Nature, Psychic, Chemical, Metal, and Enhancement Aura Penetrate Cooldown 45s Recharge 4 Supercharge Restriction Extra 5s Cooldown per Lifesteal

"The enemy's Supercharge ability is something to keep in mind. A skill of this level doesn't cost a lot of reserves and has a low cooldown window." Azra swerves his hand. I look at the trees rising higher than the layers of trees in front of us and realize that they're moving. Azra has done this one time before while preparing us for a battle against a Soulbound monster. His ability Woodland Matrix can swap the position of flora to create an enclosure or any other terrain favorable for us. The coolest thing is that he does this without thinking, judging from how he's executing the Epic-level skill while talking to me. "It's going to be hard for us to keep pinning it down before it activates its Ethereal Tirade. This is why I need you to go guerilla and sneak on it with Bloodweep. The Lifesteal effect, no matter how small, sucks some charged energy from the monster and delays its ultimate move. And we cannot let it unleash Ethereal Tirade."

"Electricity sparks from the monster every three seconds, Mr. Kolkov," Okra intervenes. "How is Mr. De Lavet going to approach it?"

Azra answers, "I'm manipulating the battle site so thick fire-retardant redwood surrounds the Bolthound. The beast loses considerable momentum when it's not in an open field, and it has a much lower chance of igniting a bushfire. Eugene is trained to maneuver in narrow space, so he should be able reach the creature."

I scan over the Bolthound's notable abilities, including Lightning Swerve, Howling Berserk, and Surging Voltage. Azra goes through a few other things, and by the end of his talk, I think I have a pretty good grasp of the adversary and my role in the battle. Based on these abilities, its attacks should follow a predictable pattern: pre-charging itself before moving at incredible speed or power.

The creature might be a good 200 levels above me, but I am Eugene. Surely I can outsmart some rabid dog.

We swiftly approach the site: a redwood thicket with redwood trees crammed up on the ground but growing apart closer to the top. Azra orders me to climb up a tree

I leap forward.

"My time to shine," I say. "Captain, watch me as I execute this flawless move of my Mythical skill Parkour, perfected over thousands of years of training. With a single jump, I shall ascend to the tree top—" I trip over a rock and fall flat on my face, losing 10 HP. The mocking laugh of Lek fills the air, drowning out Azra's incessant sigh.

I grit my teeth. "Just you wait! I'll bounce to the tree top right now."

It takes me three more tries, but I finally manage to flawlessly, perfectly, impeccably Parkour to the top, without fail. You don't count past failures once you've succeeded.

I look down. Bright orange streaks diffuse from beneath the thick canopies. The crackling sound of electricity weaves into the burnt scent of the atmosphere. The tip of my finger starts tingling; I'm not sure if it's from the electrical discharge or Bloodweep.

I can't even see the monster from up here, and Azra expects me to nail a strike in my first attempt.

This is going to be my hardest fight yet.

Azra whips out his weapon: King Igor's Whiplash—a pair of long whiplashes that coils and curls as he whips them. I don't know what type of wood it's made of, but the thorns on the whiplash can sprout and withdraw at will. Whenever the thorns protrude, they ooze crimson blood-like liquid that is in fact sap.

Soon I will wield a Legendary weapon, just like him. I will be able to utilize abilities without a second thought, just like him. I just know it.

Lek flies up next to me and says in an uncharacteristically hesitant voice. "I don't know about you. . .But this is exactly the moment where I would get the hell out of here."

"The God of Sword never backs out of a fight," I reply.

"You aren't a god."

"I will be."

The Captain grunts, then dashes into the thicket. A moment later, I hear a piercing howl, then a blazing orange ray of light shoot up straight into the sky.

"The fight has begun." I tighten my grip on Bloodweep.