It’s awfully hot today, he thinks.

Astra grimaces as he shields his eyes from the sun’s rays. The previous days had been filled with rain, and it’s only cleared just hours before. It’s the perfect time to go out and forage for anything he can bring home.

Really, it’s about time the rain stopped. His rations are running low, and a day or two later, he would’ve needed to start fasting. Which is something he’s intimately familiar with, but it never gets any more pleasant.

The straw basket on his back rattles as he hikes further and further up the barely paved dirt road. His feet sink slightly with every step, the still wet mud caking his feet.

Eventually, the slope evens out, and he takes some solace in the fact that he didn’t trip during the hike.

He fixes the straps of his basket, and he turns to the left and heads into the forest. It darkens considerably, and he smells the oily scent of rain. His feet still sink slightly into the dirt, but it’s incomparable to the near-mud that still cakes his feet.

He soon finds a Pulip Nut, hanging just from the branch of a flowering tree. He plucks it and chucks it into his basket.

+1 Exp

That was the only nut that matured. The rest of the white flowers have yet to fruit. He pulls the basket straps closer and walks on.

He finds another fruiting tree some time later. There are a lot more Pulip Nuts this time, though there are still some flowers that have yet to fruit. He plucks them off with a twist and throws them into the basket on his back. They clatter against one another as they fall.

+12 Exp

There’s another fruiting tree right behind it. Fewer Pulip Nuts have matured, but the branches are at least easier to reach. He grabs them and tosses them into his basket.

+5 Exp

He walks on, glancing all around to find anything else to forage. He’s only gotten Pulip Nuts—not terrible, but he wants a fruit of some kind, or at least an herb to make his meals slightly less dull.

His wish doesn’t come true. A couple hours later, he exits the forest with a basket barely filled with Pulip Nuts. He’s a little disappointed, but he’s content to know that he can keep himself fed for the next week or so.

He begins the long trek down. The dirt’s just about dry now, and he walks down the path without the fear of tripping and smashing his head on a rock. As he does, he glances to the left and closes his eyes. And in the darkness behind eyelids, white strings form, twisting and coiling around one another as they form into coherent words.

Rank 0 — 19,879/50,000 Exp

He nods. The numbers have gone up. It still isn’t anywhere close, but-

He hears something crunch behind him, and he quickly jumps to the left as a dart flies right through where his chest had been just seconds before. He spins, and he takes a slow breath as he sees the Goblin approach.

It’s an ugly thing, the Goblin is. With the height of a child but a wrinkly face one would normally find on an elderly man. Small bumps run all across its gray skin, from the tips of its three-toed feet, all the way to its hairless head. It glares at him, and the blowdart held in its hand leaks with some purple liquid.

He reaches to his back, and he pulls forth a knife. It’s the knife he normally uses to cut bundles of straw, but it’ll do.

He flips the knife around, and he chucks the knife right at the Goblin’s head. It misses and stabs into its left cheek instead, but it’s enough. The Goblin screeches in pain, and it drops the blowdart it was holding.

He runs and kicks the goblin down. He takes the blowdart, and pointing the still leaking side towards the downed Goblin, he brings it down and jams it straight into the Goblin’s left eye. It screams then, and he backs away as the Goblin struggles.

It dies after a minute of struggling, its throat clogged up with foam and saliva.

+212 Exp

He wipes off the blue tinged blood from his knife with a frown. “It’s weird.” He whispers. “There’s been a lot of Goblins.”

He glances at the uphill slope, and though covered by the rain, he can still see traces of steps that aren’t his. He turns down to his knife, with its leather strap worn and the blade nicked all over. “I should get a new knife.”

He continues on his trek downwards.

The slope turns flat, and he walks on and on across the unchanging dirt road. At some point, the road splits into two, and he takes the turn to the right. The road becomes narrower, and grass becomes longer. Not as many things walk across this road—the grasses have grown unkempt and wild.

Before long, he can see a village. But he doesn’t head that way. Instead, he turns to the left, walking into the forest. The shade is thinner here compared to the forest higher up, but it’s still darker.

And eventually, he comes across his home. It’s nothing special—just a hut built from wood and covered by a roof of straws, all tied together by coiled vines.

He pushes past the draped leather that acts as his door, and he calls out, “I’m home, Maman!”

No one answers him. Just as it has been for the past few years.

He sets his basket down, and he lies down on his bed of straw. He’s a little tired, but he’s worried, mostly. The forest he frequents is a calm one. The only hostile thing he usually meets are boars, and even then that’s a rare occurrence.

Something’s changed lately. The number of Goblins has been picking up. It started with a Goblin every month. And then two every month. Then suddenly it’s a Goblin every week.

Now, it’s almost a Goblin every couple days.

He doesn’t mind, really. Maman taught him how to defend himself. But it worries him still. He can kill as many Goblins as he wants, but a single mistake will end him. He’s no Hunter, and certainly no Knight. He’s just some nameless bloke living in a hut and trying his best not to starve. A single stab through his gut, and he’s done for.

He’s not one to dwell, however. So he pulls a blanket of straw over himself, and he closes his eyes as he drifts off to a dreamless sleep.

Calibrating Record…

Results: -

When he wakes, he finds that it's night. The air’s gotten a little cold, though it doesn’t bother him much.

He closes his eyes, and he sighs at the mystical words. “No Results again.” He says, more than a little disappointed. He’s moved and fought far more in the past month than he can remember, and yet the Gods have yet to alter his Record. Just how much do Knights train to regularly gain Results every time they rest?

He’s just about to rise from his bed when he hears something rustle. He quickly stills, keeping his eyes barely open as he subtly turns his head towards the door of his hut.

And he sees his leather drape pushed aside, and someone standing just by his doorframe, his silhouette lit by the moonlight. It almost looks like a Goblin, but it’s too tall to be one, and he can see it holding a staff of some kind.

It steps into his hut, stopping just before him. His eyes adjust then, and he nearly gapes at what he sees.

It's definitely a Goblin, but it looks wrong. Its face is covered in all sorts of twisting tattoos, glowing an ominous purple that fills his heart with dread. There are bone pikes growing from its shoulders, the bones having painfully pierced through the flesh.

He remembers this thing. Maman had shown it to him in a book.

A Goblin Warlock. A Goblin capable of harnessing spells.

What is it doing here!? Goblin Warlocks are rare, and are often found in civilisations of Goblins. They’re not monsters one would normally find in a normally peaceful area such as this. And more than that, why is it in his hut?

Whatever the case, it suddenly makes sense why the number of Goblins have been increasing as of late. A Goblin camp has probably been founded in the forest!

In the darkness, he can barely make out its expression—a mixture of rage and disgust. It whispers something, and the pikes growing from its shoulder shudders slightly. It taps its staff onto the dirt, and the head begins to glow a strange green.

He doesn’t know what the Warlock is doing, nor does he know why it’s here.

It doesn’t matter.

He takes a soft breath, and he leaps forth from his straw bed. The Warlock squawks in surprise, and then screeches as he stabs a knife through the Warlock’s neck. It garbles, throat filling with blood, before it falls limp. The staff loses its glow and drops harmlessly onto the ground.

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“Always keep yourself armed.” He recites dutifully. “Correct as always, Maman.”

+5722 Exp

He quickly brings the corpse outside, and he chucks the Warlock corpse into a bush just far enough from his hut. His arm and knife are both covered in blood, but he has a few rags he can use back at his hut.

He makes it back home, and he blinks as he nearly kicks away the fallen staff. He’s completely forgotten about the staff.

He stares at it for a good moment. It…doesn’t feel all that dangerous. The ominous feeling he felt from it just a minute before is gone now. His instincts aren’t blaring like they usually would, and he’s learnt to trust his gut over the years.

He bends down to grab it, and shivers as his fingers brush against the twisted wood. It lacks the ominous feel, but he can still feel something from it.

He takes hold of it, and he winces. It feels like he’s plunged his palm into an open flame, just one that doesn’t feel hot. Or like he’s placed his hand into a running river, and yet his skin remains dry.

Does that even make sense? He doubts he’s making any sense.

He stands back up and frowns. The staff hasn’t done anything, really. At least aside from giving him these strange feelings. What is he supposed to do with this thing?

…Ah! Maybe he can sell it? He does need a new knife, after all.

He nods. The plan sounds solid enough in his mind.

He does need to wait for daytime, however. The village close by is still asleep by this time, and he doubts the cranky old man would appreciate him turning up at his store in the middle of the night.

He glances down at the staff.

The more he stares at it, the stranger he feels. There’s something wrong about it. The shadows of the hut seem to warp around it. Even the wood looks off, as if it’d belonged to a tree that’d grown wrong.

It’s like the world itself is twisting around it.

It’s making his eyes hurt.

He leans the staff against the wall of his hut. He lays on his patchwork bed and tries to sleep. It doesn’t work. He remains awake, even as he stubbornly keeps his eyes shut.

He relents eventually. It seems he won’t be getting any sleep tonight.

He spends the next few hours idly sitting on his bed, glancing into the dark with his knife held in his hands. He keeps his eyes trained on his door. And through it all, the wooden staff remains on the edge of his sight, its buzzing discontinuity painful if he stares at it for too long.

Nothing comes, in the end. Sunlight begins peering through the gaps in his door, and he lets go of his knife.

The Night has passed. The Danger has seemingly passed.

He knows, deep down, that it hasn’t. This is only the beginning.

And he’s right. It’s only gotten worse.

Days past, and now it isn’t uncommon to see entire droves of Goblins walk down the dirt paths, moving with more intent than normal.

It’s becoming increasingly hard to forage for any food. Astra does have a sizable basket of nuts kept in his hut, but even that will degrade over time. If this continues, it won’t be long before he runs out of food, and he’ll be forced to venture into the now Goblin-infested forest.

No one will help either. It’s not as if he’s seen Knights walk through that forest before. They’ve only ever turned to the village he’s neighboring, and even then, that’s a rare sight.

His knife is useless now, too. He’d run into too many goblins, shaked too many necks. The blade has turned dull—it’s no better than a metal slab by this point.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Inevitably, his eyes turn to the crooked staff he’d placed at the corner of his hut, just as he’s done for the past few weeks. He’d intended on selling it, but something about that feels…wrong. Like he shouldn’t expose something like it to normal people.

He feels that same buzz in the back of his eyes. It’s not as strong as it used to be, but the discomfort remains.

A thought crops up in his mind. “If I can use that thing the Warlock was about to do, I won’t need my knife.” It says. He can still remember the strange green glow that was gathering at the staff’s head, and the feeling of pressure that pushed down on his chest.

It was magic.

He would’ve ignored it. He’d ignored the feeling hundreds of times before. It felt…off. Not malicious, and not evil. Just dangerous.

This time, he listened.

It isn’t as if he can do anything else. His knife is as good as dead, and he can’t leave the trees his hut is hiding around without coming across a group of patrolling Goblins. It’s either death by starvation or death by a bludgeon straight to the head. If this crooked staff he’d taken from that Warlock can give him something to hold on to,

He stands from his bed, and for the first time in weeks, he takes hold of the wooden staff.

Immediately he feels the discomfort run through his hand. He does his best to ignore it as he steps out of his hut, grimacing as he turns his eyes away from the peering sunlight. He walks to the left, and soon he comes across the corpse of the Goblin Warlock he’d discarded, now rotting and partially eaten by ticks and maggots.

He takes a breath, and he tries to remember the memories of that night. Of the glowing green, of the invisible pressure, of the malicious hatred present in the Warlock’s eyes. He thinks of them as he holds the staff in both hands, doing his best to ignore the growing discomfort now spreading across his body.

And then came pain.

He nearly cries out. It feels like his body is burning, like he’s being stabbed through in every inch of his body. But he can also see the small greenish glow on the staff’s head, slowly growing larger the more time passes.

So he holds on, gritting his teeth even as nose bleeds. The greenish glow grows larger and larger, until he can’t see the staff’s head. A pressure pushes out from the staff, and he can feel his rags being blown back.

Slowly, he brings the staff up, pointing its head towards the Warlock’s corpse. The pain is immense then, but he holds on still. He holds on, because nothing can compare to that day.

And then, the metaphorical rope snaps, and the green orb flies from the staff. The recoil sends him crashing into a nearby tree. The impact blinds him for a moment, but he recovers just enough to see the corpse be completely obliterated. The orb explodes right through the corpse, and the tree just behind it. Splinters and dirt and bugs fly across the air, accompanied by chunks of flesh and dried blood.

He stares at it, and he fears. Because that’d nearly happened to him, hadn’t it? Had he not been awake that night, had he not kept a knife under his bed like Maman always tells him to, he would’ve been nothing else but a stain in the dirt.

He staggers up, breathing heavily as blood drips from his chin. He turns and begins dragging himself back to his hut.

+32,774 Exp

His vision is blurring, and black is encroaching from the edges of his sight. But he manages to get to his eyes before anything else happens, and he practically falls through the leather strap he’s using as a door.

Lv 0/1 — 55,095/50,000 Exp

Limit Reached. Calibrating Record…

He crawls towards his straw bed, dragging himself across the dirt as blood continues to stain his rags. His body shakes with every move, and he feels bitingly cold for reasons he can’t explain.

He falls unconscious before he can touch the straws.

Record Calibrated. Rank Updated. Limit Shifted

Your Existence Has Become More Defined

Awaiting Further Report

Awaiting Further Report

Awaiting Further Report

...

Record Calibrated

When he wakes, it’s to find his entire body stinging in pain, like a thousand needles had pierced through his flesh. He tries to move, but the feeling only grows worse.

And yet he can feel that something’s…changed. There’s something off about his body, as if he’s suddenly grown overnight and now he’s struggling to catch up.

A suspicion forms in his mind, and he closes his eyes.

Level: I - 5095/250,000 Exp

Str: Rank I [0%]

Agi: Rank I [0%]

End: Rank 0 [0%]

Int: Rank 0 [0%]

Mag: Rank I [0%]

Datasets: [Forage — Rank I], [Assassination — Rank I], [Prism Gathering — Rank I]

He takes a breath. He knows this. His Maman had shown hers and he still remembers it.

A choked laugh spills past his lips. He did it. He did it! The barlady, the old man—they said that he should just keep his head down and stop trying to break his Limit. He could understand why they said that. It’s extremely rare for a civilian like him to ever achieve such a monumental accomplishment.

And yet here he is, with his Records now visible in the real world.

Not that he can do much about it. He’s stuck here, his body too weak to even twitch. Strangely, he doesn’t feel as panicked as he probably should be. There’s a foreign instinct inside him, urging him to close his eyes and just breathe.

So he does.

And he feels…something. He isn’t sure what it is, but there’s a warmth building in his chest. He doesn’t move though, nor does he open his eyes. He keeps himself there, slowly breathing as the warmth in his chest proliferates around his body.

When he later opens his eyes, daylight comes streaming through his door, and he suddenly feels better than he ever felt. He stands and marvels at how seamless he moved. Not a sting of pain is felt, nor does he feel a cramp from the hours he spent laying on the ground.

He has a hunch as to why.

Prism Gathering — Rank I

Progress Cache: 2%

Allows [Astra] to absorb Prism from the atmosphere.

Recorded Techniques: [Meditative Breathing]

He nods to himself. He doesn’t know much about Prism, but from the book he read, it seems to be the thing Magic uses. That’s about the only thing he knows, really. The book only speaks about those ancient Magics, and nothing about how they work.

He takes another breath, and he feels a momentary flash of that familiar heat in his chest. It’s power, he realizes. There is Magic flowing in his blood now, coursing through the newly-carved rivers in his flesh.

No wonder he felt like he was dying. He genuinely was.

But, now that he’s received the blessing of the gods, now that he has Magic in his blood,

He takes up the crooked staff and smiles.

It’s time to go to the village.