After the comforting warmth sensation couldn't be felt anymore by Sam, what followed was some new skills provided by his new Class.

*Gained Skill* [Ready To Serve (Epic)]

-Find a worthy commander and appoint the said person to become someone you're willing to follow and serve. Once you appoint someone to become your commander, you're unable to disobey any command. This skill allows the soldier and commander to share 50% of their stats with each other regardless of levels.

Warning: you can only use the skill once or until the current commander contract is terminated, then you can use the skill again.

Well.. one thing for sure is that there's no way he would ever use this disgusting skill. As someone who goes against fate and gain true freedom, this skill is no different than a mockery to him and it's not even a funny joke either.

Without a second thought, Sam refused to elaborate further on a skill he will never use and see the next skill.

*Gained Skill* [Basic Military Marksmanship (Novice)]

-One of the most basic skill to possessed among countless soldier. A good soldier should be capable of to not only engage in close combat but also shoot the enemies down from the distance. Unlocks basic proficiency with ranged weapons and add a miniscule bonus to the effect of Sense when using ranged weapons.

Now this is a proper skill, obtaining a skill that can help him use ranged weapons a bit easier was pretty nice. Having this skill save Sam so much time, he didn't need to worry about ranged related skills for awhile. Instead, now he can focus on keep improving his current skills or develop a new one. Looking forward to his next skill, the system gave Sam a surprise.

*Gained Skill* [Basic Military Hand-To-Hand Combat (Novice)]

*DING!* [Compatible skill detected!]

*Combining Skills*

Processing...

...

Skills combined successfully.

*Congratulations, Unarmed Combat and Basic Military Hand-To-Hand Combat have merged into Elite Forces Close Quarters Combat*

[Elite Forces Close Quarters Combat (Competent)]

- A soldier who has strong foundation and highly skillful in applying the art of unarmed combat. The way you utilize your body to become a weapon has been an excellent feat, a worthy achievement to be considered an elite forces. Adds a minor bonus to the effect of strength, agility, and endurance. Adds a minor stamina regeneration effect and a minor efficiency upon using any type of weapons in close combat.

This one is uncharted territory for Sam. While he knows about how to improve and obtain skills, he didn't know skills can be combined like this, even the skill proffiency is upgraded to Competent it was just straight up nutty in his opinion. Not only that, it appeared to not only gives bonus effect to his stats, it even raise his fighting efficiency upon using any type of weapons in close combat.

Without a doubt, the combined skill had many benefits to it. It felt like two skills in one package and the potential is nothing to scoffed at either, Sam definitely looked forward on the day this skill get upgraded.

The next skill on the list is not as exciting as the combined skill but it's a pretty good addition to have nonetheless.

*Gained Skill* [Soldier physique (Uncommon)]

-The body of a soldier needs to be healthy and robust to face any potential danger that would emerge. This skill allows the soldier to be more resilient than normal and help to reduce their mental fatigue faster. Passively gives a minor increase to the effect of Endurance and Will.

At a glance, this skill seemed to be on par with Basic Military Marksmanship regarding their straight forward effect but Sam can confidently says that this skill is much more than meets the eye.

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As a passive skill, it will undoubtedly be activated all the time but that's not what the focus here. The increase in resilience is nice but the real hidden gem here is the fatigue recovery effect, with this effect he can do so much more than before, be it fighting, researching, or even learning new things. Also, this skill didn't need a certain condition to be activated so it's basically active all the time.

Finally the fifth and final skills is here, it's time to check out the real juice was at.

*Gained Skill* [Rebellion (Rare)]

-A rebel such as you doesn't cower in the face of fate, if necessary you will bend the rules and carved your own path to lead it into your ideal will. Going against the predestined path fate had created, you had became something that exist outside of fate, practically turning your existence akin to that of an anomaly. Increases resistance against to the law of the divine and gives a minor increase to endurance and will while facing any divine or anomalous being. The bonus is based on the disparity between the level of you and the enemy. Limit of 1.50x your level or 75 levels, whichever is highest. May your path lead you to your ideal, rebellious one.

If Sam had to describe his thoughts on this skill, he would say it was extraordinarily powerful, almost beyond words. While it was limited to use against divine and anomalous beings, it still stood out as the most formidable skill among the four he possessed. He was certain it would prove invaluable in the future.

After completing his evolution process, he emerged from the makeshift cave feeling like a new man, brimming with happiness.

He didn't know how much time he spent inside the cave and he certainly couldn't tell by looking at the sky since it's always night, so he decided to take a look at the tutorial screen.

[Tutorial Panel]

Duration 25 days & 16:24:13

Tutorial Type: Survival

Completion Criteria: Survive the duration of the tutorial

Tutorial information: The Evernight World is filled with danger and opportunities for the fledgling. Beasts are roaming around hunting for prey. Kill the beasts to acquire Survival points (SP) while gaining strength. Be warned, excessive killing or destruction will alert the sleeping G'rath...

Survival points (SP): Killing a beasts will gives you SP but if you're in a group the SP will be split equally amongst the contributors.

Final rewards is based on SP and the Number of Survivors

Total survivors remaining: 389/500

SP Collected: 1,956

May the twilight blessing be with you survivor, good night and good luck.

"Holy shit! I'm out for 2 whole days?!" Sam exclaimed in bewilderment, not expecting the evolution process to take so long.

'Sigh... 25 days left. Seems like there's not much time for me to explore the whole area,' Sam thought to himself.

He shook his head to snapping out of his disappointment and he tried to cheer himself up, 'Oh well, let's look on the bright side. I got a new class to play with, hehe.'

Before venturing deeper into the forest, he approached the corpses he had brought and stored near his makeshift cave. These were the bodies of the hostile group he had killed two days ago.

When he arrived at the site, he removed a large, strange looking stone with a few slash marks on it. As he moved the rock aside, he found something horrifying. All the corpses looked like dried, hollow husks, similar to mummies depicted in movies.

Now, Sam was no expert on dead bodies, but he knew and sure as hell they shouldn't look like this after just two days. If they began to rotting, maybe, but turning into dried husks? That was something else entirely.

"Something is hella fucking wrong here, and I don't like it," Sam muttered softly under his breath, frowning at the corpses.

He then quickly began to switch the gear in his brain into detective mode, and mentally equipping his detective glasses, he started inspecting the corpses thoroughly, looking for any oddities.

Time flew by really quickly as he focused all his attention on checking all of the dead bodies. Just like that, an hour passed.

The results of Sam's investigation were quite unsettling to say the least. In the end, he found several oddities.

The first one, for some reason all the corpses had completely white eyes, devoid of pupils, like golf balls. Second, their brains had been replaced by some kind of spiky black slime of unknown origin. Third, each had a black pentagram-like tattoo on the back of their neck.

"What kind of sick fucker doing this crap?" Sam muttered to himself.

Since he couldn't logically explain why the corpses had turned into dried husks, there was only one conclusion: magic. He wondered why this group had attacked him. Was it just to rob him? No, they seemed hellbent on killing him as if he owed the money. It was like they were bewitched or mind-controlled by someone or something.

It's not strange if they're under mind controlled really, because of all of these new system power mumbo jumbo. It's very likely caused by a human with an evolved caster class and not because the system itself is controlling them. Sam hypothesized that, like his new class, there were probably many people with unique and bizarre classes out there.

If his hypothesis was correct, what was the reason behind such a disgusting act, What did this person gain from it, who were they, and were they nearby his place? So many questions swirled in his mind, but he had no answers. The only thing he knew for sure was that magic was involved.

'I need to get stronger and find out the truth as soon as possible, my gut feeling is telling me there'll be something big coming onto this forest.'

With a new plan in mind, Sam wasted no time preparing and ventured deep into the forest once again.