“Zack? Is that you? You have to run!” A feminine voice he did not recognise from one of the burnt houses called out to him, and without hesitation he ran over to check it out.

Within, a lady, in truth a complete stranger' sprawled on the floor with a large cut on her leg as well as two ruined arms covered in burns. She simply couldn’t survive for much longer, and he needed to know some things. It was no wonder that she saw and recognised him as the position gave perfect view of the street outside.

“I– I need medicine, a wild animal attacked me. Where does the village keep it, I’ll carry you there.” Feigning care, he tucked the ritual dagger into the simple sheath given earlier while chucking the regular metal blade away. Moving next to the lady, only a hopelessly innocent child would even attempt to save her.

“The north… Side. By the school, you remember, right? Just leave. Quickly!” Her eyes turned from pleading to terror, not even realising that he’d silently pulled out the ritual dagger and cut open her throat.

The fine edge sliced through her neck like a chef’s blade… and she died moments later profusely bleeding while gagging for air.

As her head flopped down, lifelessly, he dropped the body and checked his status. By his knowledge this alone should be enough to hit level 5.

Killing humans on the verge on death still proved the best source of experience. In his past life he wandered a few battlefields to finish off those few remaining soldiers, each of the times providing several easy levels.

Unfortunately, while this sounded like a huge amount of points, the increase between levels is also massive. Not to mention, the deterioration for being a higher level is insane… So much so that after being just 40 levels above you received no experience at all! It actually drops to just 1% of the normally gained experience once 20 levels higher, but what really sucked about it all was that there’s no bonus for killing things above your level.

Once more Neuro was a horribly unfair system, even if he rose to the top that was clear to see.

Overall status: Bleeding, minor dissociation between body and soul

Title: None

Class: None

Sub-classes: Reborn

Level: 5

Experience Points: 16/300

Unassigned Class points: 5

Health Points: 78/100

Magic Points: 1/1

Strength: 1

Dexterity: 2

Endurance: 1

Mind: 1

Magic: 1

Spirit: 1

Attunement: 1

Unassigned Stat Points: 4

Class Skills: None

General Skills: Walking (level 1), Jogging (level 1), Running (level 1), Dagger (level 12), Medicine (level 6), Critical strikes(level 1), Skinning (level 15), Regeneration (level 2)

He needed some of the warriors to still be alive, just a single one of them could push him up to level 10 in one shot! The chance to rise again so quickly couldn’t have been anticipated.

And while heartless… He only found one sort of survivor after that lady. Just a few babies which barely survived the slaughter and smothering smoke by being locked in hidden basements.

Killing an adult or teen was one thing, Neuro gave him experience for such an action, not to mention those people could remember his identity. But a baby?

A baby!

He didn’t need to take those extremes at the moment, although he knew of justification for those slaughters in the past. Like when crushing every last root of his enemies, unless every last drop of blood had yet to be buried how could he ever claim them put to rest? A child can hold a desire for vengeance, driven to greatness on spite and malice alone. He certainly knew, being both an example and target of such feelings. And it was that exactly situation which granted him the title ‘Blood King of Aramiel’, having been targeted by the King of Aramiel after killing the boy’s parents… The situation only fizzled out once he destroyed the 200,000 strong army and then the king’s entire lineage.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

However, it did not even end there as he killed every last supporter of that king, not a single corner of the kingdom had not been stained in blood.

But he won! And only that mattered.

Instead of a worthless slaughter, he left the babies in baskets with a blanket at the entrance to the village, connecting to an obvious main path. Whether they lived or died depended on fate.

He spent twenty minutes instead rummaging around the village’s north to find medicine, eventually locating a small apothecary which sustained severe damage in the fire. Some small jars of various medicinal salves survived completely though, and simple testing showed which aided in wound closure and healing.

Another type reduced swelling about his wounds, possibly just an anti-inflammatory but as a precaution he spread it over all in case it held disease-killing properties.

At his prime, the knowledge of microbes had not been disseminated to the masses, instead just being common information to anyone powerful enough to see that well. Still, it doesn’t take a genius, or powerful warrior, to know when something can cure diseases.

Some more rummaging through pouches and half-burnt drawers found a vast array of herbs, but actually identifying them proved difficult. Occasionally he spoke out about them, “This looks like tri-yellow tipped… But why does it have a blue stem? And these crimson blood hairs are a deeper shade than I remember. Same for this all-nature leaf, it’s veins are too deep a colour. I… Can’t be sure.” It repeated every ten of so plants, and eventually he came to a conclusion.

After so many years the environment changed to a degree outside his knowledge, not so much that he failed to recognise things, but actually be sure could not be less possible.

Admittedly, the little small clover with three yellow tipped petals looked identical to a tri-yellow tipped. But what if some sort of poisonous clover simply mimicked those characteristics?

After so many years it unavoidably–

“This is an apothecary. When did I begin having such lapses in judgement.” Berating himself, he placed a tri-yellow tipped and all-nature leaf under his tongue. What sort of idiot villages stored deadly poison right beside medicine?

Even using the concept of poisons and medicines being one under certain situations, the danger of one leeching into the other overtime is never worth risking.

As his saliva broke down the two plants, the essences merged and seeped through his mouth and into his blood. This combination only had a single purpose, effectively being an encouragement which forced his spleen and marrow to hastily produce blood.

Such an effect does require nutrients to maintain though, but even with the restored blood he had a few hours until food became an issues. Grabbing one jar of healing salve, he used a thick rope to hold it similar to the dagger and performed one sweep of the village.

A few bodies still warm to the touch, he felt a bit upset for missing their penultimate moments. So much free experience gone to waste due to the medicine search, but no use over regretting it.

Stopping an infection obviously came first, and with the clotted wounds he found some clean fabric to use as a makeshift bandage. Combined with a nice find of some shaped flint for fire-starting, he just changed into a pair of thicker pants and a shirt as well as looting some relatively clean leather shoes.

While a bit too large, something to protect his feet mattered a lot more than being perfectly sized. Some cloth stuffed into the shoes made it fit well enough as well.

Grabbing a simple falchion off the ground with its scabbard in decent shape, he set off immediately. No wasting time or pining for more corpses, he just left for greater heights.

“Two points into strength, and two into dexterity.” The immediate decision to improve his body caused several shudders to resound through him. Body tripling in power output instantly, he felt stronger to an amazing degree. Every muscle flexed with uncontrollable ability and felt strong enough to crush stone, although not really. He knew how powerful 3 strength was exactly. As for dexterity, doubling his reflexes and agility once more still left him happy.

Now his limited stamina was the only problem, but a few more levels solved that easily. His massive boost in strength meant that every step pushed off the ground with incredible force, crossing almost double the distance with ease!

When running he could force each step to compete with a sizable jump from his previous self. Needless to say he crossed a distance of two miles in mere minutes… Exhausting himself entirely right after that.

Just that single sprint improved his Running by two levels though, a small but noticeable boost overall. From there he just had to now pick a direction.

Go eastwards along the main path to some sort of major town or city, hopefully never seeing any of those attackers again. No doubt they’d kill first and ask questions later, if even that. Who exactly would reprimand them killing a villager?

Which left the other three directions, very clearly the swamp wasn’t an option. Surviving there is tough for a human, and if possible he preferred to have solid ground to walk on. Meanwhile, the forest clearly devolved into a thick canopy without light, but its periphery could not be so dangerous.

“Level 10 area? Maybe a bit higher, as long as the externals are less than 20 I’ll stay. If not…” he looked outwards, thinking if moving around the forest to a further point was on the table.

With the forest just five more miles away, he decided to jog over to take a proper look. On the way a rabid rabbit, group of hyenas, and stag all attacked him. All of them, without fail, were felled in just a few moved from the sword he brought with him. Checking Neuro revealed just how ridiculous his weapon skill was.

Obtained skill Sword!

Sword: level 66

The effect of every skill had to be brought up separately, but for all weapons the effects are identical. To increase the damage dealt by that weapon by 10% for every level.

In which case, Neuro directly improved every slash’s damage by 660%. This was an additive effect as well, meaning it was over seven times his original sword swing overall! Such damage is less interesting at extreme levels where everyone could wield a weapon to this degree, but after reincarnation the effect was… Well, he saw it first-hand.

No one could be allowed to see someone of his age wield a weapon with such precision and finesse. Even without the boost in power he’d have slit the throats of each creature with ease, requiring just a single stroke per kill. In the process he earned 25 experience, way too little to mean anything serious, but it helped reduce his boredom before standing at the forest’s edge.

Changing the steel blade for the ritual dagger, he readied it for an attack and stepped inside. Moments after passing through the line of trees he received that all-important message from Neuro.

Warning! Entered level 15 area!

That number was pretty nice, but the range of this area was up in the air. If rather large he could ensure his safety, but if it only formed a thin ring around him…

“Well, I just have to survive a week to be more than strong enough. What do I have to lose?” And as no answers came up, he entered the level 15 forest periphery.