It didn't take a genius to realize that only my [Advanced Corrupted Bloodshaper] class had level up. And it was the same with the wolves I had killed before.

Everything counted. Levels were attributes and attributes power I could use to free Yasmin.

Knowing all of that was not making me feel any better about not leveling {The Third Eye of Corruption}, my class. It really was a product of my own power, without System intervention, without Bob trying to stir me somewhere else.

It didn't level up through battles, and neither did it through normal pulses. Which meant, there was only one thing left to try. Corrupting something. Trespassing the line between the System and it's underlying magic.

If I had one bit less self-control, I would have run outside to try and corrupt some animal. A bug, probably. Realistically, though, I knew that there was absolutely no chance that would ever work. How could it if I didn't understand how the process worked?

The first time it happened, I had taken an object that contained magic unsuitable to me, and I unwittingly altered it.

The second, I was minutes away from dying when an already corrupted object—the source of a dungeon to be precise—absorbed all my energy.

Instead, I settled for the first thing I found. A tube, formerly a part of some contraption in the summoning facility. I didn't quite know what I was going for, just that I wanted to corrupt it.

First I'll send a pulse.

[Tube]

Useful.

The result was exactly what should have been; the System information, a word that describe what it was.

That was not it. I wanted to corrupt it. I didn't want the System input. If anything, I wanted less System and more magic.

I wanted to get rid of any interference. Discard anything that made the [Tube] just be a tube.

I saw an indestructible cudgel. A bat capable of breaking through the hardest metal.

“You are not a [Tube], you are a [Indestructible Cudgel].”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I locked into it and sent a focused pulse, a beam of energy that hit exactly the tube. Nothing more and nothing less.

It had intention behind. I don't care about the System. This is an [Indestructible Cudgel]. Make it be one.

[You have lost 15 energy]

I immediately followed with normal pulses to see what was happening. The fact that I got a System message was enough to get suspicious.

The pulse reached the tube, and there they were. Tiny bug-like spots that ate at the tube’s existence. They fed out of the System data in it, erasing what the System considered necessary for the tube to exist.

They ate for one second. The following one, they started devouring its energy. The third, the tube started sporting black dots over its surface.

The fourth, only dust remained.

[{The Third Eye of Corruption} has leveled up]

“Huh?”

Apparently, a failure still counted towards the class progress. Also, the System still notified me of leveling up even when the class was purely mine.

The system is not leveling me up! I realized. It's just helping me understand how my magic and energy grow! It's one of its perception enhancements!

That made so much more sense. The System didn't confer me powers. It didn't assign me classes or attributes. It helped me understand what the world’s magic meant. Instead of showing a string of meaningless numbers without structure, it grouped, parsed, and simplified it for me.

It was not about experience points. It was about the actual experience. Using, testing, manipulating, fighting, killing, corrupting. All counted towards my growth.

With a clear goal in mind—to level {The Third Eye of Corruption} as much as possible—I set myself for a marathon of corrupting.

Five days were barely enough to get started, but I still tried it. Tubes, parts of chairs, a picture’s frame, anything and everything did.

For the whole five days, except for the night of the fifth were I slept to recover energy, I didn't stop.

I ran a whole battery of tests to check the limits of my class and skill. Corrupting an object under someone's domain—Lebil had been modestly well equipped—was next to impossible.

I tried once, only to see a chunk of 500 energy evaporate at once without having the tiniest impact on his ring.

Then I put it on, and that must have changed something. I failed at corrupting it, but less than 50 energy was enough to convert it to corrupted dust.

Not all had been bad news, though.

[Slightly less fragile corrupted tube]

A tube with enhancements that make it slightly more resistant to blunt damage.

The trick to make it work was quite straightforward. Don't think big. Indestructible, powerful, capable of breaking walls, magical; none of that would work.

Either I didn't have enough knowledge for that, or the object was too crude to begin with. Most likely, both.

My experiments would have to finish there. Not quite enough to make a difference, but certainly helpful in drafting a plan. Dawn was breaking, the day had come. I trained and prepared until the last minute.

“Yasmin, wait for me.”

Status: {

 Name: Darian

 Energy: 1025/1025

 Classes: {

   [27] Advanced Corrupted Bloodshaper

   [5] {The Third Eye of Corruption}

 }

 Attributes: { 

   Strength: 6

   Agility: 14

   Vitality: 6

   Intelligence: 29

   Wisdom: 29

   Stamina: 6

 }

 Skills: { ... }

 General: { ... }

}