A bout of exhaustion brought Devon back to the present. He had been pushed to his limits continuously for a full day, and his body was about ready to collapse. He took a quick look at the rest of the notifications he'd gotten from clearing the dungeon before he forgot and they were lost to the depths of the system.

Solo clear - Class E Memory Dungeon [Knight of the Cursed King]

Calculating performance… Done.

Addition objective complete, boosting performance… Done.

Performance Rating: B

Tailoring B-Grade Reward… Done.

Reward added to Inventory.

New title obtained: [Novice Dungeoneer]

New title obtained: [Independant]

If it's in my inventory I'll just take a look at it later. I need some rest.

Devon made his way back down the mountain the way he had come. It didn't take too long, going down was much easier than going up thanks to all the slopes he could simply slide down.

When he finally got back to his humble cave he immediately passed out on the cot he'd left behind.

When Devon woke up it was still light outside, which made him wince. The fact that it was still day annoyed him because he wanted to work on ascending the mountain to look for whatever the king had left behind, but he wasn't willing to ascend in the dark, not knowing what manner of creatures may lay in wait near the peak. He'd just have to check how close night was when he finished going over everything.

He took a look in his inventory and quickly found what the system had given him. He took it out and examined it as he held it before him. It was a beautiful ruby red gem set within some kind of amulet.

[Amplification Gem]

Class E Artifact

Charge: 0/100

Amplification Gems can be used to boost the power of any skill, spell, or ability the user chooses on activation, so long as the class of that skill is equal or lower than the class of the gem. Boosted skills do not consume mana, but boosted spells retain their mana costs. Charge is acquired automatically through consuming the spirit of the user's kills.

The system had given him something incredible. The ability to boost his skills to the next level was already amazing, but the fact that it made the skills used this way cost no mana was beyond anything he could have asked for. He just hoped that it didn't take too many kills for the thing to charge up.

Just as he thought that, he noticed something odd. The charge, which should have still been at 0, had increased to 1 of 100.

So does it charge passively as well? How strange that the description wouldn't mention that.

Then another possibility occurred to him. If the knight's words were to be believed, it was exceedingly rare for someone as low leveled as him to have awakened their spirit. If the spirit was used as the fuel for the ability, then it might be siphoning off his spirit to continuously regenerate.

Even so, Devon wasn't certain whether this was a good thing. The description said it consumed spirit, but there was no way for him to confirm whether the spirit it was siphoning off him was simply excess energy or whether it would actually start to harm his spirit. Devon took a look at the attribute in question to see if it had gone down at all and noticed something strange.

[Status]

Name: Devon Wells

Race: [E-Grade Human]

Level: 24

Class: [Cursed Warrior]

Profession: [Cursed Schemer - Level 2]

Mana: 165/165

Talents: [Spear Proficiency - Level 4], [Sword Proficiency - Level 5], [Hammer Proficiency - Level 5], [Dagger Proficiency - Level 3], [Axe Proficiency - Level 7], [Quarterstaff Proficiency - Level 6]

Skills: [Sever], [Shatter], [Quickstab], [Lacerate], [Split], [Bash], [The Mask], [Refine]

Abilities: [Respite], [Small Presence]

Magic: [Light], [Fireball], [Lightning Imbuement], [Adrenaline], [Boost]

Titles: Initiate, Cursed(3), Vicious, Ambitious, Giantslayer, Lord of Massacre, Novice Dungeoneer, Independant

Strength: 124

Dexterity: 120

Vitality: 113

Endurance: 112

Arcane: 116

Spirit: 28

Free Points: 115

Talons: 748

[Novice Dungeoneer]

Awarded for a user's first dungeon completion.

All stats +5.

[Independant]

Solo completed a dungeon rated to be equivalent to the Class of your race.

All stats +15%.

It went up again…

Of course, he wasn't thinking about the obvious. Naturally his stats had gone up, he had leveled three times since he last looked at the page. What had gone up was the amount of extra mystery points he was getting for each level. By his calculations the increase had first started on level 22, giving him 2 extra points in every stat instead of just the 1 as it had been before.

It was also becoming more and more obvious as time went by that spirit was an entirely different kind of attribute from the base five. It didn't receive bonuses from his titles, percentage modifiers, or the boosts from his profession or class. The only thing it actively benefited from was the source of points he couldn't identify.

However, there was the possibility the new set of points weren't linked at all to the previous type of mysterious gains. He still distinctly remembered the system welcoming him to what it called the path of ascendancy when he'd broken through the level 20 barrier. It was entirely possible that the points were linked to the path of ascendancy, whatever that was.

Ladder.

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[Level Ladder]

1. Eve - Level 31

2. Zane - Level 30

3. Ray - Level 27

4. Nix - Level 27

5. Stein - Level 26

6. Ingrid - Level 25

7. Trey - Level 25

8. Ash - Level 25

9. Licht - Level 24

10. Kyle - Level 24

How the hell did she manage to get to level 31?

Devon had been fighting constantly for four days straight, and that woman was still advancing beyond him like it was nothing. And she wasn't the only one. Was everyone else really forging a path of carnage even greater than himself? That seemed unlikely, but Devon couldn't discount the possibility off hand.

He was about to open a channel to Trey to ask him about the mysterious point gains, but decided against it at the last minute. Instead, he tried Eve again.

Message known user Eve.

Waiting… Connection established.

[Eve]

Kinda thought you'd be doing better up there. Pretty sure you're about the only one that bothered with the mountain, so you should have plenty of prey. So why the hell aren't you even on the ladder?

[Devon]

Trust me, I wish I knew. I have a question, how many stat points do you get from a level?

[Eve]

Kinda personal, don't you think?

[Devon]

The system never gave me helpful tips like it did you guys so I'm stuck figuring stuff out on my own. Please?

[Eve]

Fine. I still get the 1 point in every stat from the racial gains and the 10 from my class. Still getting 5 free as well. Kinda thought it would go up from getting a class, but guess not.

[Devon]

Nice rare class.

[Eve]

You better believe I worked my ass off for it.

[Devon]

How the hell have you managed to level up so fast? I keep pushing myself to the absolute limit but you guys just keep pushing ahead.

[Eve]

Well I fell down a hole and got stuck in a giant ant nest for the past few days. I'm lucky there was a terminal down there, the weapons the system gives out are absolute trash.

[Devon]

I know the feeling.

[Eve]

Have you at least made it to 20?

[Devon]

Yeah, passed the quest it gave to break the barrier too.

[Eve]

Here's a heads up, it gives another at 30. I'm pretty lucky I had the ant queen to kill, but I doubt such opportunities are going to be very common here.

[Devon]

Why? If stuff keeps getting stronger the further out we go then shouldn't we be able to keep progressing by pushing further out?

[Eve]

…Have you made it to the top of the mountain yet?

[Devon]

No, why?

[Eve]

Well I just reached the far edge of the plains today. I don't think the tutorial is meant to allow us the opportunity to advance indefinitely. I mean, the area that this place encompasses is still massive, but I'm starting to see why the overseers aren't too concerned about us out-leveling them.

[Devon]

What do you mean? I could see the cliffs at the edge of the plains when I looked from halfway up, but can't you just scale them?

[Eve]

I think you'll see what I mean better when you reach the top. Anyway, I need to find Phil. I managed to meet up with him on the second day, but a friend just messaged me earlier that he's gone missing somehow.

[Devon]

Go back and help Trey then. You'll be able to search better with more manpower.

Really what Devon wanted was for her to go back and help bolster their fighting power, but he knew it would be insensitive to say that.

[Eve]

No thanks. I get what you're trying to do, raise an army to fight back and whatever, but that's not my style.

[Devon]

You can't just ignore the situation. And you can't seriously believe that you alone can stop every overseer.

[Eve]

Fuck off. I'm gonna do things my way, and if you don't like it then too bad.

Connection closed.

Dammit.

Devon thought Eve's methodology was foolish and naive, but he couldn't deny that it had validity in a world ruled by the system. You probably could dominate by strength alone if you worked hard enough at it, but if it was as easy as Eve wanted to believe then the overseers wouldn't have bothered hosting a tutorial for easy exp in the first place.

Still, the conversation had been fruitful. He knew now that there would be another ascension quest at level 30, and he knew the level 20 ascension didn't give out any extra stat points per level.

Which meant they were still coming from the unknown source. But that fact frustrated Devon immensely, because there was no explanation for their existence. Devon could accept natural talent, he could accept being gifted help from beyond the veil, but what he couldn't accept was the unsolvable mystery. The best guess he had was that it was related to his curse, but even that was shrouded in mystery.

He sighed. In the end, there was still nothing he could do about it. At least the extra points were a huge step toward enhancing his strength. He may not have a nice class like Eve or Trey, but he was actually gaining as many raw stats per level as Eve was gaining stats and free points.

He looked at the amplification gem again and saw it sitting at 3 charge. His spirit stat hadn't changed, and he didn't feel any different. Content that the thing wasn't going to start degrading him, he put the amulet's necklace around his neck.

Now, it was time for something he had desperately wanted to do during the Memory Dungeon, but hadn't. He looked toward the one and only class skill he had, Refine.

He wasn't sure what proficiency he needed to be at for the skill to work, but he was certain that he'd reached an adequate level in at least one of the weapon types. The real reason he hadn't done it was the unclear cost of doing so. Every other skill took mana, so he assumed Refine would as well, but he hadn't wanted to potentially waste precious mana when the system could throw anything at him at any time in the Memory Dungeon.

Out here was a different story.

Activate skill; Refine.

Specify target.

Set target as Sever.

Cannot refine [Sever]. [Sword Proficiency] is not a high enough level.

So level 5 isn't high enough, huh?

Devon figured he would try out the skills going by order of their weapon type proficiency, with 5 being the lowest he could imagine working.

Next. Set target as Bash.

Confirmed. Refining skill [Bash]... Done.

Class F Skill [Bash] has been elevated to Class E Skill [Bone Breaker].

Cooldown for [Refine] for Refining a Class F skill set to 10 days.

So that's how it works.

Devon looked over at his mana and confirmed the skill hadn't used any at all. Instead the skill seemed to work on a rather lengthy cooldown.

Devon found it strange that the system hadn't awarded him any skills at higher proficiency levels, but he was starting to be able to guess why. There were likely a myriad of classes available to normal people, and among those were likely classes that specialized in certain weapons. If he had to guess he'd say it seemed likely that the normal skills that would be acquired by going down proficiencies were locked behind those classes, or more likely each class would have its own unique skill at certain proficiency levels.

Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. What's important is that I have the ability to grow stronger in the first place. At least the system doesn't seem to be able to take that away from me.

Satisfied with finally knowing what his sole class skill did, he turned to the terminal to do some shopping.

He sighed as he looked at the weapon selection. His axe had truly been a lifesaver in that memory dungeon, but it had honestly reached its limit before the fourth day had ended. The axehead was wobbly and the handle looked like a dog had chewed on it from every attack Devon had blocked with the length of wood.

Still, Devon was loathe to even consider having to go back to using the starter weapons. He also decided he simply didn't want another axe. His own had served him extremely well, but he just wasn't suited to the weapon.

So Devon bought the most expensive spear he could afford, the third cheapest at 600 talons. In his mind, the spear was easily the most suitable weapon for him right now considering he could take advantage of Quickstab, Shatter, and the newly upgraded Bone Breaker. He supposed he could get one of the glaives, but he preferred the simplicity of the spear.

With that out of the way he also bought two more healing items to refill his completely exhausted supply, a starter spear as a backup just in case, and three javelins to round out his wallet. The javelins had been very handy against the apes, and he found he was getting significantly better at aiming them the longer he practiced.

Just for curiosity's sake, he examined his new spear. It was much closer to the tribal design the savage axe had than the metallic look of the starter weapons, and Devon found that he liked the hardwood handle a lot more than the metal.

[Intermediate Spear]

Class F

The only other thing Devon was going to miss about the axe besides its reliability was the strength affinity. He had noticed it at some point in the dungeon, that his swings just seemed to feel weightier when he swung the axe instead of the starter weapons or any of the makeshift weapons he picked up. He assumed a weapon's attribute affinity boosted the respective stat when using it.

With all that out of the way he stepped out of his cave, intent on checking how much time he had left before nightfall.