The knife slammed down into Menoth’s heart as he screamed maniacally. Combined with his already-weakened body and Ryzen’s added strength, the knife successfully pierced the vampire’s heart.
“What have you done? You bitch!” Menoth screamed as his breathing became heavy and the light in his eyes faded.
Ryzen looked down at him without pity. Who knows what would have happened to him if the vampire had its way?
You have killed level 17 vampire!
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
New skill gained: Shadow Step
Ryzen excitedly glanced at the screens popping up in front of his face and pulled open his status.
Ryzen Litfield
Race: Otherworlder
Class: Shadow Soldier
Level: 5
Hp: 30
Mp: 140
Strength: 6 (+5)
Dexterity: 16
Agility: 18
Vitality: 6
Endurance: 4
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 9
Unselected: 20
Skills:
Disguise: 1
Shadow Step: 1
Not only had he gained a new skill but he had also gained unselected stat points. It also seemed like he gained random points in a few different stats forcing him to realize something he hadn’t even thought about. He quickly thought of his class and a new screen showed up, explaining the details.
Shadow Soldier (Unranked):
You are a soldier of the shadows, unrelenting and mysterious. If one were to ever find themselves the target of a shadow soldier, many would assume them to be a dead man walking. However, such a class has been long lost to time. Once part of a world-dominating force, your strength is now lost to the throes of time. Make them remember the true strength of humanity.
+ 2 agility per level
+2 dexterity per level
+1 intelligence per level
+5 unselected per level
Ryzen now understood where the stat points came from but the description only left him with infinitely more questions. It also made him realize how little he knew about this world. He was stuck underground with practically no one to ask questions to.
As he could do nothing about this problem for now, Ryzen let it go. However, he would be sure to learn more if he ever got the chance to.
Ryzen quickly moved to his new skill and brought up the screen for that. Seeing as one of his skills already saved his life, it seemed vital to know what it did as soon as possible.
Shadow Step (Unranked): The first true skill of a shadow soldier whose first strike was usually their last. One component of this was their immaculate stealth allowing them to move through the shadows.
Consume 5 MP per second and speed is dependent on agility.
Ryzen nearly jumped for joy upon reading the description. While there were sure to be many caveats to this ability, it sounded overpowered. He did wonder what unranked meant though. He had seen it with his class and his other skill as well. He assumed it was supposed to give an idea of how good his skills and class were but for someone as unknowledgeable as him, it was practically useless.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The sound of footsteps distracted Ryzen from further continuing his investigation. He made the split-second decision to test his new skill then and there as he would likely be caught if he didn’t. A single thought allowed him to merge into the shadows as he felt his form becoming incorporeal. Luckily, his knife came with him as the thought occurred to him after he had already gone through with the plan.
“Shit, what the hell happened here?” a vampire looked at the scene in a panic and quickly ran away. After a few seconds, Ryzen came out of the shadows with a wild grin on his face. It had worked! The vampire truly had no idea he was only a few feet away from him.
Ryzen quickly shook himself out of it, hid the knife in his pocket, and started making his way back to the dining room. As he returned, it seemed like most of the vampires were already finished up and almost everyone else had returned. Almost everyone looked sick but it was clear that some people had worse treatment than others. Some even held blank looks, clearly broken by whatever they had gone through.
Ryzen returned to the line that had formed for them to go back and after some time passed, the vampire that had led them there returned.
“Good, you are all here. Looks like none of our residents felt like they had special privileges. Now let’s go,” the vampire said with a creepy smile.
Once they returned to their shitty living space, the vampire left and the students were once again left among themselves. Each of them seemed to be visibly weakened and conversations were rare. Some even collapsed on their chosen mat as soon as they returned.
“C’mon guys, we gotta stay strong!” a familiar feminine voice said, startling everyone.
Ryzen rolled his eyes as he spotted Analith at her usual antics yet he was subtly grateful to her. He had to admit that the silence was quite awkward.
After some more motivation from her, the room once again became lively with conversation about various student’s experiences becoming the main topic. Still, it was clear that some people were too far gone and broken from their experiences.
“Well glad to see you’re okay,” Analith said, pointing at Ryzen.
Ryzen simply nodded as he remained quiet in his corner, hoping to not join in on the conversation. He didn’t mind it but he certainly didn’t want to join it.
“Oh, whatever. If you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m here okay? Don’t forget it,” Analith said with a roll of her eyes.
Ryzen nodded his head although he had no intentions of ever sharing anything with anyone in this world, let alone Analith. Currently, he was focusing on his next plan of action. He was now level five but that wasn’t nearly enough to get out of here. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had to have been five times the level of Menoth to even have a chance of getting out of here let alone level five. He made this judgment based on the seemingly infinite strength of Venis and he didn’t know if he was the strongest vampire in here.
This meant that Ryzen would have to take risks. He had to leave the living quarters. Now, if he were to do this, he would have to be extremely careful. He didn’t know what sort of skills could detect him in his shadow form. There was also a short time frame in which he could use it. Thankfully, his agility had nearly doubled which meant his speed would likely double as well. He hadn’t had the chance to fully sprint yet but he felt that he could go much faster than ever before.
He didn’t know if it was going to be enough though and the risks associated with this worried him. That’s when he realized something else. He hadn’t spent his points yet! He had a whole twenty points that he could put in any stat. That was enough to completely double his agility, even now! The thought of that quickly got Ryzen excited as he prepared to dump all his points there but quickly stopped as thought about it more.
It would definitely benefit him to be faster but what if he didn’t have enough strength to even pierce his enemy? He had gotten lucky with Menoth and doubted that every vampire would have a dented chest waiting for him. Ryzen quickly reevaluated his choices and concluded that a mix of dexterity, strength, and agility would be a good mix for him. Vitality didn’t matter much because if he was getting hit in the first place, he would already be dead. Wisdom and intelligence didn’t seem to be very beneficial to him right now and currently, survivability was key.
Ryzen quickly plugged five points in strength, five points in dexterity, and ten into agility. A surge of power washed over him and he struggled not to test out his new abilities. He felt like he could rule the world!
He quickly calmed himself down and stopped himself from grinning widely. He didn’t want anyone to get any idea about his abilities as that could only spell trouble. Now, that he had some semblance of a plan, he simply waited for his fellow captives to fall asleep.
Once they did, Ryzen silently rose and sped to the exit of the room. He calmed his rapidly beating heart and fell into the plentiful shadows that came naturally with caves. He nodded to himself and then moved as fast as he could. Despite the measly twenty-eight seconds that he got with this form, he found it almost to be too much as he sped through various tunnels at a speed he thought impossible only a day ago. He was as fast as a car!
Soon, Ryzen found an area that seemed to be sort of an underground barracks. He silently popped out of his form and skulked around until he found a room that was filled with sleeping vampires. Unfortunately, there were also two guards stationed in front of the entrance stopping Ryzen from entering. He didn’t think it would be a terrific idea anyway since he didn’t know the general level of the vampires and any noise he would make could be his death. He still had twelve seconds left in his shadow form so he used a second to scout the place out and managed to find a vampire guard wandering around, muttering about something. Ryzen took a deep breath of shadow and moved in.
Suddenly, he appeared right behind the vampire who instantly tried to move around but Ryzen was too fast. He instantly jammed his blood knife into the vampire’s heart who looked at him in disbelief. The vampire didn’t have time to counter-attack or even make a sound. He died just like that.
You killed level 15 vampire!
You have leveled up!
Ryzen slowly allowed the guard’s body to fall to the ground and attempted to take it with him into his shadow form. Unfortunately, it seemed like that was not possible and he was forced to leave him there. Hopefully, there would be some time before he was discovered.
Ryzen quickly hid in a corner of the barracks area and quietly observed the body. If anyone got close, he would attempt to take them out. Sure enough, the two guards from earlier walked over, clearly looking for their fellow guard.
“What the fuck is Vajek doing?” one of them grumbled.
“The fuck if I know. He’s always messing around. Wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t even in the barracks room anymore,” the other replied, unsurprised.
What did surprise them was the body that came into sight and they instinctually moved for their swords strapped to their waists. The first guard never got that far as Ryzen’s knife was soon inside of his heart. A loud gurgling sound came out of his mouth before he died, causing the other guard to angrily charge in Ryzen’s direction. To the guard’s astonishment, Ryzen disappeared before his eyes and before he knew what hit him, he too was impaled through the heart.
You killed level 16 vampire!
You killed level 19 vampire!
You have leveled up!
Ryzen was inwardly grinning at the stat points but was soon forced to leave the area as the commotion had woken up some of the other vampires. Thankfully, his added stats allowed him to make it back to his living quarters and everything went surprisingly well.