A slow ascent, yet how much meaning there was in each and every step. The monsters were few, to Mark’s surprise and luck. He had close to no experience in combat, so a training stage was more than enough for him to try and apply whatever theory and concepts he knew beforehand.

The sound of cracking bones was drowned out by the screams of those who tried to get away.

"How lucky..." breathed out Mark. Most of the scenarios he was familiar with began in a harrowing fashion, with more monsters than one could count rushing the entire place.

He didn’t let his mind distract him though, since one second too late could end up badly. The skeleton behind him had no chance, cracking at the mere touch of the blade.

"I’m sort of too tired of these guys, perhaps I should..."

His words were cut short by an incoming gang of goblins. Four little green rascals, no taller than a toddler, yet their movements were sort of coordinated.

"Well shit, let’s see."

A smirk appeared on Mark’s face, to his half-hearted surprise. He sort of knew about that side of him —the part of him that enjoyed giving a good beating— even if he had never used it.

The goblins were chanting something, and one of them rushed at Mark with a rusty dagger. Their weapons were no better than his stolen sword.

One strike was not enough, which forced Mark to widen the gap between them. The goblin moved fast, which meant one thing: hit once and hard. Twisted laughter burst out, and the others joined in.

Shit! Fucking bastards, I’ll show you.

Two to the side, rushing in at the same time. Mark leapt back, preparing his sword for a strike, then jumped to the side, enough to dodge the other one. Wham, one down. The others, scared at the sight, cried out and rushed—once again—at the same time, running side by side.

"Great."

The same smirk popped again on his face, which meant one thing: they were done for.

With his left leg stomping the ground, torso twisted, Mark got ready to take them all out at once. The stone beneath his feet was quick to turn red, and the same beeping sound kept annoying him.

"Oh, screw you, I’m not checking anything now."

Without even looking back, he went ahead, aiming for the top. From below, I saw nothing but goblins and skeletons. Perhaps I should be ready for something else, though.

The same mundane things happened as he went up. The path kept getting narrower and narrower, making it hard both for him and for his enemies to fight one another. One wrong step, and he’d see if his physics teacher was right all along.

After his arms almost went numb from the amount of swinging he had to do, he finally reached it

"I swear *pant* that this fucking *pant* mountain looked smaller from below."

He chose to rest for a bit, placing his palms on his knees. The place was empty, except for a handle sticking out of the ground.

"If that thing is a common rusted sword or something, I’ll be so pissed I’ll throw the fucking blade then myself."

He went ahead and gripped the handle, forcing the thing out. It barely budged.

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"Oh, shit, don’t tell me."

He placed his legs on the sides of his body, wrapped both his palms around the handle, arched his back ever so slightly, and aimed to deadlift the thing out of the ground. His face turned red, his arms nearly gave out, yet the blade got unstuck. He lifted it up, watching as the sun’s rays played along the edge. No wonder he could barely pull it out—the thing was at least one and a half meters in the ground. The thick blade made holding it a grueling duty, yet its beauty mesmerized him. No pain, no noise, nothing could disturb him.

"Damn... this thing is heavy... can’t wait for the day I get to use this with one hand. I can eve-"

BEEP

To the side of his face, a blue screen popped up.

"Choose a class"

He stared at it for a few seconds, rubbed his eyes, then checked again. The thing was asking for a class. The big button in the middle read, "Press for class selection."

His hand reached for it, but he stopped himself, shaking himself awake from the trance. Wait, something feels off. I have a feeling pressing that will be a big mistake, so let's try something else.

"Turn me into a mix of a sorcerer, wizard, or whatever, and a melee class, like a warrior who can use magic just like a wizard would."

Calling myself a Spellblade doesn’t seem like the right calling, perhaps my abilities would be limited. Let’s see what this does."

"System integration... Applying Class... Class unrecognized... State the name of the class..."

"What?!" Ok, perhaps it knows what I want to do, let’s see."

His fingers pressed the buttons on the screen, fulfilling its request.

"Unique Class Created: Swordsmage"

His face was all smiles, and the feeling that the system had been tricked made him want to dance —he was not one to enjoy dancing.

He checked his status window, something that had become available right after his class choice.

"Holy!"

He had a lot of status points that had to be spent, and his level was in the twenties—twenty-one, to be more precise. Before spending the points, he checked his base stats, the ones he found more useful.

"48 strength, 78 intelligence, 51 agility, 67 stamina, and 65 wisdom. Damn, I feel like an old man seeing all that wisdom there. And what’s with that intelligence? I feel like it’s not that much though, I’m sure of it. Welp, time to spend them all! Two points for each new level earned, which means that I have... 40? That means that I was at level 1? How the hell? No matter, perhaps the system counts starting now that we can access it."

A clatter of sounds kept annoying him, yet the task at hand was more important than anything else. His sweet points went into each stat he had to balance.

"Great! Time to test this out."

Lifting his sword felt lighter, but using it in battle was far from his current state.

"Hmm, how about this?"

He moved his hand through the air, and a subspace of sorts opened up in front of his eyes. Without even glancing, he threw the sword in there. Having an inventory sure is useful.

His eyes drifted away in the distance, then froze. His face was tensed up, his breath was uneven. Hordes of monsters of various sizes, ranging from undead to orcs.A large army was marching through the streets, coming his way. Lucky for the civilians, they had already left some time ago, barricading themselves inside. No monster went out of line to ravage, no, they were acting like soldiers.

"Well shit, this thing is way more interesting than I had expected. Just how screwed are we? I’ll go down in a few minutes, but first..."

He focused on the center of his right palm, lifting it up and pointing it in a random direction, away from the monsters—he didn’t want to invite them just yet.

A small flame formed there, then it grew in size until it could swallow a car. He was all smiles, a mixture of feelings: from happiness to the urge to destroy everything that stood in his path.

"Good, now, to try one last thing. Open!"

His shout was that of a warrior, as if HE ordered the system around. The window opened, showing the same blue he had already seen a few times before. He touched the window, then focused the same energy from earlier into the window.

"Error: System Br*%@!#(!&"

He kept pushing, despite the rapid noises changing tones, going from high pitch to low. He knew he had one thing to do, and that was to make sure his side of the system was truly his."

"Hey! Stop this, or else something might break! We could barely set up the system on such short notice, so things are not working properly."

A soothing voice—yet one filled with anger—scolded him for his actions.

"Well, well, well, things just got beyond interesting."