Deep in a forest, Damien could be seen with a satisfied look; he had just killed the last beast needed to advance to E rank and was now staring at a prompt from the system.

“Upgrade of the user’s existence available. Would the user like to upgrade? Choosing not to do so could cause unseen issues in the user’s body. Seeing the last part of that sentence, Damien could not help but be curious about what would happen should he select no.

Shaking his head at doing something so stupid, Damien quickly selected yes.

“Upgrade commencing, brace yourself user. As soon as the system finished its words, Damien felt immense pain from every pore in his body. Gritting his teeth he quickly sat down and tried his best to keep himself from screaming out.

As the pain kept building groans of pain started to escape Damien’s lips. While the pain sucked and he would rather not have to go through it, Damien also understood that the pain was in a way helping him build up his tolerance. The further he walked down the path of pursuing strength the more pain he would have to put up with whether it was physical pain or mental.

The sound of his bones cracking and reforming echoed as they bounced off the trees and traveled through the forest. The sounds coming from his body were truly horrifying, even causing some beasts to quickly run away upon hearing the noise, believing it to be a stronger beast.

After what felt like eons, the pain finally started to subside. Examining his body with his senses, Damien noticed the difference in an instant and could not be happier with what he saw. Hoping to his feet, he threw out some quick jabs to test out his speed and power a bit.

The wind whistled sharply with each punch, nodding with a satisfied smile, he checked his perception of his surroundings next. Focusing on the forest around him, Damien extended his senses. Doing so revealed the forest around him in great detail; he could see the smallest of animals as if he were inspecting them with a magnifying glass, even if they were hundreds of yards away from him.

Eventually, though, his head started to hurt from the amount of information being fed back to it, at the end of the day, Damien was still a human, and his brain could only handle so much, even if it had evolved to help process more information.

Withdrawing his senses, he finally called out to the system to see what his stats were looking like after his evolution. When Ela evolved, her stats had doubled their previous values or at least that was what she had told him so with that in mind Damien expected quite the boost from this upgrade.

Name: Damien Atlas

‘Age: 200 years’

Level:45

Race: High human/Shade (F rank)

Bloodline - High shade

Titles: The first to awaken, Storms Child, Shades primordial.

Class: Origanls descent

Stats:

Health:275 —> 550

Mana:375 —> 750

Strength:290 —> 580

Agility:275 —> 550

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Defense:250 —> 500

Intelligence:270 —> 540

Perception:250 —> 500

Willpower:240 —>480

Skills: Mana breathing (Divine), The original (Primordial), Storms blessing (legendary), Lightning fast (rare), Expert Samurai (Rare), Flicker of the original (epic), Originals knowledge (legendary), Pure mana manipulation (Rare) semi-space manipulation (Epic)

Points to distribute:110

Damien reviewed all of his stat upgrades and nodded, a satisfied smile spreading across his face as excitement bubbled within him. “Time to head to the center of the irritated zone and test out my new power. Hopefully, the beasts there will put up a good fight,” he thought to himself, recalling Ela’s previous words with high expectations. He just hoped they were not misguided.

With that, he quickly made his way back to the inn where he and Ela had been staying. She would have accompanied him during the upgrade, but he had decided against it. His reason was simple: he didn’t want her to always be there to save him if he found himself in a tough spot. While having help was beneficial at times, being overly reliant on someone could hinder his growth.

Meanwhile, as Damien returned to the inn, Ela was deep in meditation. Beads of sweat trickled down her face, and a look of strain crossed her features. She was trying to gain insights into her spirit cloak skills but was making little progress. For some unknown reason, delving into its depths felt incredibly taxing.

Unsure of what was causing the strain—whether it was her mind, body, or soul—Ela could only speculate that it was her soul. She had learned about the existence of souls one day when she asked the system out of curiosity, and to her astonishment, they were indeed real. Not only did souls exist, but dragons, ghosts, reincarnation, and all sorts of other concepts she had never believed in were also real.

Based on her understanding of souls, Ela assumed that the strain she felt was coming from her soul, as the pain did not seem to originate from anything physical. With a sigh, she decided to give up, for now, recognizing the risk of overexerting herself.

Just as Ela was about to stand up, she heard the door to their room open. Glancing back, she saw Damien entering. Upon noticing the sweat on her forehead, he immediately asked, “Why are you sweating so much?”

Instead of answering directly, she smiled and gestured for him not to worry. “Alright then,” Damien replied with a grin. “It’s time for us to head to the center of the irritated zone.”

At his words, Ela quickly scanned his body and noted that he was at E rank. Nodding in approval, she said, “Sounds good! I’ve been wanting to test out my strength for a while now, and this should give us both an idea of our new powers.”

Smiling at her words, Damien started to get excited at the potential fights that he would come across at the center. Based on Ela’s description of it from a while back, the monsters they encounter there should be much stronger than anything they have faced so far.

Away from Damien and Ela, a man with a massive sword on his back could be seen heading in the direction of the irritated zone. Along the way the man killed anything that got in his way with absolute ease, the man in question was, of course, Jake.

Jake was advancing toward the irradiated zone, eager to test his newfound strength. Unlike most, he had visited the center before but had been forced to leave due to his lack of power. This time, however, Jake was determined to find the strongest being in the zone to challenge, fueled by an unparalleled thrill and excitement for battle.

Similar scenes were unfolding across the globe, as people like Ruby, as well as various organizations and yet-to-be-revealed groups, made their way to the same location. It was clear that those heading to the irradiated zone were in for some surprises.

In the center of the radiation zone, a being that had been in slumber for an untold amount of years opened its eyes. “So the time has finally come after all these years.” the being grumbled out in a low tone, its voice cracking a bit since it had been a very long time since it last spoke.

“Hopefully, his words were true. Otherwise, everything will be for naught.” With that, the being went silent once more, waiting patiently for the arrival of those heading to the center.

Meanwhile, Damien and Ela were blissfully unaware of all this as they chatted happily about their upcoming experiences, wondering what they might discover within the center and what secrets of history awaited them—secrets that should have been lost long before “Earth” existed.

After only a few hours, they had arrived at the edges of the zone and, without stopping, made their way in, killing all the beasts that dared to attack them along the way. Getting closer to the center, Damien was happy to see that Ela had not been exaggerating her words, the monsters were getting stronger and stronger the closer they got.

Knowing now that her words were, in fact, true, Damien smiled with excitement, and his blood boiled.

“This is going to be fun.”