I was being called to the book. The system told me I had to read it. I needed to touch it. Somehow, it was compelling me to hold it.
And I started second-guessing myself. Should I do it? Was the system setting up a trap? Was Lebil scheming to kill me?
But the urge was too big to overcome. I walked until it was in reach. My arm extended. My hand opened.
And I grabbed it.
[Corrupted Bloodshaper]
By Ambrosia. System-corrupted edition.
The book described a unique bloodshaping class that removed the restrictions on mana to manipulate blood.
Through a series of miscalculations and fatal events, the class itself became corrupted.
Owners of this class are not limited by ambient mana, but they become tied to their own energy and the ability to recharge it effectively.
Flabbergasted. Stupified. Awestruck. Fancy words kept coming to me as I read and re-read the description of that book. Just fucking marvelous.
[System update, class
“What!?” I had to double check that nobody had heard me shouting.
What in the name of all Saints, the Church, the System, and whatever is going on in this world!?
Status: {
Name: Darian
Class: {
!!Evolution available!!
Name: Corrupted Bloodshaper
Level: 20
Energy: 750/750
Attributes: {
Strength: 4
Agility: 9
Vitality: 5
Intelligence: 20
Wisdom: 20
Stamina: 5
}
Skills: { ... }
}
General: { ... }
}
Evolutions were, as far as I had been told, something that happened at level 25. I was 20, still 5 levels below the mark, but I was being offered the option?
[Start evolution for
A flashing dialog on my right was prompting me to start. Clearly, triggered by the book, which had somehow cemented my class.
I was no longer an error. Just a corrupted existence. And I had seen corrupted wolves evolving, so why wouldn't I?
Did this make me a monster? I think it did if going by the definition these people used.
Yes, I want to evolve my class. What else was to doubt?
[The evolution process might take some time. During these time, your physical form will remain in your current place. Do you want to proceed? Y/N]
No!
I had never been as fast at deciding something. Abandoning my body for an unknown period of time right when they had just attempted to kill me? No. Thank you.
That didn't mean I wasn't dying to evolve. I was about to burst a vein from the sheer curiosity of what my evolution would be. I had to know.
They were supposedly based on what I had been trying to far, and I would say tinkering with my energy had been my greatest achievement.
Actually, now that I thought about it, I never received an skill for my concentrated energy shot. Was it because the ring?
Was I rushing the evolution? I hadn't even read the book that had opened the option to evolve.
I am being seriously over-dramatic.
Clearly, I had rushed the decision. Weren't because I still had that one neuron thinking, I could have missed on many things.
All I had to do was not leveling up. I could still do it, but I would be missing on the new class attribute bonuses. But I could try to get the new skill—and definitely read the book—without leveling up.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
I wanted to try right then. To use my pool of energy—twice the amount of just yesterday—and create my own concentrated energy attack. And I would have done it if it weren’t for the group of people trashing the place.
I had to make sure this room looked destroyed. It absolutely no machines, but I still had to make myself seem useful. I didn't want anyone questioning why I had lost so much time in here.
I sent a few energy arms flying around, punching into things, dashing from one end of the room to the other, hitting and pillaging everywhere and everything. There was no doubt, by the moment I ended, that some serious destruction had been going on there.
Now I had two options, and I could choose only one. I had Lebil still in my range, and I highly doubted he was aware of that. Charlotte did seem to notice, or so I thought, but I didn’t have the same impression here.
So, either I caught up to him and joined him on his adventures, or I stalked him.
Obviously, I stalked him.
No one seemed to care about me peacefully strolling to the other side of the building. Or they were scared to asked, which es seven better.
Lebil finally entered a room; one that I immediately recognized. It was lacking seven corpses, but I knew everything else.
The hole on wall. The trashed machines. The splutters of blood. The stretcher I had been lying on. Goosebumps. I was shivering from the memories from that place.
Yet, despite all that familiarity, there were things that I had not seen. That I couldn’t have seen. Notebooks. Walls with whiteboards filled with graphs that I could not understand.
Evidence.
From the very same moment I realized, I broke into a sprint. My legs hurt and my breathing was failing me. I feared for the worst. I knew why Lebil had gone there first.
If he really knew what had happened. If the expedition was a farce, a facade to hide the truth, then Lebil's job would be, above anything else, to destroy the evidence.
I sprinted. I rushed to the room. I had to stop it.
My pulses flared every second, consuming as much of my energy as needed. I saw everything as an old black and white movie. No voices, just actions. Lebil walked to the middle of the room, stopping to eye the stretcher. His head shook. He snapped his fingers.
And nothing happened.
I was still darting for my life. If there were proof that I was the subject of an experiment, I wanted it. First, no one but me should see that. Being an error, a failed experiment that they tried to terminate, was not something to boast about.
Second, and perhaps more important, I would pursue the mastermind behind the experiment; noble, Saint, rich man, or however it was. I would pursue, torture, and kill.
I didn’t need any information from them. I didn’t even want a way back. I was enjoying this world, the system, and everything that came with my highly corrupted class.
I was sweating buckets. My legs wouldn’t move faster, and I was cursing at the system for not giving me more physical attributes. Even though I knew that it was the right choice not doing so.
Lebil looked at his fingers, and shrugged. He looked up, his mouth moved forming words I didn’t understand, and when his hands came down, everything was set ablaze.
Flames erupted from every surface. Not a grand fire, but enough to slowly eat at all the wood and paper in there. I was consuming whatever energy I had left as the leads to my origin were disappearing.
I reached the frame, an unhinged door hanging by the side, completely out of breath.
“Lebil. What are. You. Doing?” Words painfully left me one by one in between hazard breaths.
“I am destroying the source of all the corruption,” his open palm pointed towards all the room.
“You destroyed evidence of what happened here!” Ire overtook exhaustion and my voice raised.
“I don’t recall our mission here being to investigate what happened. We have to clear the corruption, and that’s what I did.”
“The d-”
“In fact,” he interrupted me. “what is it that you are holding there?”
Ah, fuck. I couldn’t think of anything else. I had forgotten about the book, the very same one I was carrying on my hand and that clearly read Corrupted. He couldn’t see it yet, while it was on my possession, but that meant I couldn’t just let him see.
“This is just a book, and not what is important no-”
“Let me see that, I will decide if it’s important.”
He could not see it. No matter what, that was the only thing I could not allow. The evidence was already gone, so there was no meaning in me fighting for it. No. I had to save whatever I had left from this expedition.
“You know,” I put on a smug face, “I remember someone telling me that, officially, we should report what we found. I was thinking, officially I should report that you willingly destroyed evidence here. In fact, I might not have understood the drawings in those blackboards, but I have quite the memory.”
I was bluffing. While I had seen the blackboards, and I knew there were drawings, and I could even see them… I did not remember a single line.
“You are lying.” He flat out said, although I could feel the tension in his calculating sight.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But, how do I know that there were blackboards? And how do I know there were drawings? You. Don’t. Know.”
There was silence. We didn’t move a single inch. Our eyes crossed paths. And finally, his tongue clicked on his mouth.
“Keep that. You’ve seen nothing here.” He was already walking by my side when he stopped. “And, if you blabber too much, I’ll make sure that’s the last of your mistakes.”
I winked at him while bringing my finger over my mouth. His naughty secret would be safe with me. I didn’t have any intention to announce and advertise what had happened here. But I wouldn’t let go of the topic. And, if anything, this would be his last mistake.
[Dungeon's corruption source has been cleared]