These boys had more or less saved his life, and he felt that he was a bit too cold in how he was treating them. However, he really couldn't help it. His problems were endless, and he had no extra mental space to worry about them as well.

He had been dreading accepting this fact the whole day. He did his very best to distance himself from them precisely because of how it would make things infinitely more difficult, and he was barely surviving with how things already were.

He was still standing after he confronted George, and after a while, he began hearing loud music blasting through the streets, coming from seemingly every direction. He figured this was the night festival they told him about earlier, but this time instead of excitement all he felt was emptiness before an ironic smile slightly widened his lips and he sighed, 'Oh how quickly do things change. At least I took advantage of my ignorance and enjoyed the morning.'

Heart heavy with inexplicable emotions, he quickly understood that at the bottom of most of his issues was weakness, and to get strong, he had two options, make runes and kill things. Pushing the latter for later, he sat down and began writing another story, preparing to understand his runes better.

The shack had already turned almost dark, so he grabbed one of the very low-quality cheap candles that belonged to the group and lit it up close to his rug in the corner.

This time, he was using a story from his own life on Earth. It was about the time he went in an old kayak fishing in the ocean, to this day he still doesn't know whether it was because the kayak was too old or that he had too many items on it, but it broke, in the middle of the ocean. He could still remember the despair he felt that day as wave after wave worked hard to drown him, but just as his body was gradually giving in, a passing boat noticed the debris and saved him.

This story took the rest of the remaining four pages of the first parchment.

Eyes fixed on the single parchment above his knees filled with characters, he studied where the first story began and ended, and then he separated the two.

'Let's see how this will turn', he thought, anticipating the result of the experiment he had been working hard for the last three hours or so.

He opened his stats interface, minimized it to the absolute max, and controlled it to stay in the corner. This was something he had learned he could, on accident.

With a palm above the story about Jacob, he started releasing his skill on top of it with eyes following his declining mental energy points. Once the number hit 22/40, he immediately put a stop to it.

The beautiful dance of ink and arcane symbols began once again, captivating Melvin with its every move. In less than a minute, all of the symbols and the ink characters transformed into pure energy that swirled before converging with each other.

[Congratulations! You have created a Rune: Brutal Strength]

[Rune of Brutal Strength:

+ 1 Vitality

+ 1 Strength]

'Ehh...' Scratching his head, Melvin studied the attributes of this rune with a complicated expression, 'Let's see the other one.'

The same process repeated itself, and he used another 18 Mental Energy points before another small window appeared in front of him.

[Congratulations! You have created a Rune: Relentless Sea]

[Rune of Relentless Sea:

+ 1 Wisdom]

'Now, how about that?' He thought feeling a mixture of both understanding and disbelief. Eyes fixated on the glowing runes, he moved his right hand and touched both of them before they dissolved into his body, increasing his power yet again.

A deep meaningful look sneaked into his face as he thought with hands crossed in front of his chest, 'These stories weren't as impactful as the first one, but then again it's not every day when someone fights with gods and goes through all those things.'

The more he thought about it, the more satisfied he became with the results of his runes so far. He knew how many things he still could improve and those improvements would be reflected in the runes.

However, he quickly thought of another important point, 'My own stories will sooner or later be over, there is only so much interesting stuff a person does in their life. What then?'

The success that he grasped in his hand began to feel elusive and out of touch once he realized that, and he still didn't know how successful it would be to write stories of others, stories that he didn't completely understand the essence of.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

From what he could see from the Brutal Strength rune, they did work, but he didn't understand the essence of that one much either, though their effects were clearly worse.

'What about fictional stories?' Melvin questioned, he knew how important fiction was to stories as a whole, but from his first attempt it didn't seem to work, but then again, that could be barely considered a story, 'I'll try sometime later.'

Suddenly, he felt struck by a sense of enlightenment!

'Wait!' He thought with a sense of urgency, his legs couldn't help but stand upright, 'Why should I limit myself to just small stories that get written in an hour or two?'

He was aware that the greatest forms of literature didn't happen overnight, but the effort of weeks, months, and even years went into them. Why shouldn't he follow the same principle as well?

'How strong would a rune be if I increased the quality of all my ingredients, learned to write better, learned how to increase the narrative's weight, increased my mental energy reserves, and finally worked on it for months?' He shouted in his mind as a profound sense of passion overtook him, 'Oh my god!'

Such a concept made him feel astonished, 'How powerful would that rune be?', as his mind thought about that, another interesting thought appeared, 'Maybe that Life Rune would also be very overpowered? But I have to find out how he died to get it.'

Even as he sat down once again blankly staring at the shack's wooden walls, both ideas dominated all of his thinking faculties, and that was all he could think about.

He knew one thing for certain, 'I'll do everything in my power to see that.'

Still, he wasn't merely driven by a promising future, he knew that in order to get there he had to be strong enough to not only have access to those materials, but the most important ingredient was none other than his mental energy, and it was a measly fifty.

Melvin had to increase his strength, and the best way to do that was to raise his Rank. From his strolling around the city and eavesdropping on people's conversations, he knew that the best way to get XP was in the dungeon or by hunting monsters in the nearby forests. He had also learned that the Initiate Tier wasn't particularly difficult to go through in terms of XP, it was the ranks after it that were challenging.

'But both require me to go out of the city.' He thought with a dejected expression, he knew how he was a wanted man. Fortunately, his wanted poster seemed to be somewhat recent and it hadn't reached all of the guards otherwise he would have been stopped by those guards when he attempted to enter the city that morning.

'Wait a second.' He remembered that guard who acted as if he was familiar with him, 'Captain Cedric I think he was called. I need to ask Henry who the hell is he, maybe he can help me get out?'

A new probable path began to emerge before him, and Melvin began to get slightly excited about it.

'What if it doesn't work though?' He thought, knowing that he had to be prepared for anything, 'There is another way to gain XP, I can hunt something inside the city walls.'

What existed in bulk inside the city walls? Humans.

Melvin was shocked at that realization, he had actually found himself faced with the fact that there was a very strong possibility that the only way to increase his strength and ensure his survival was to kill other humans.

His mind instantly echoed some of the being's last words to him, "As for goals, that will also be settled on its own, otherwise, you'll die. So let's see how bad you want to survive."

Not even a day had passed since he came to this world, and it had already come to this.

He, as a regular guy from Earth found the concept of killing others rather complicated, and more so, wrong. He wanted to think he would never do it, but yet deep down he knew that it was a lie.

"I can actually do it..." He muttered under his breath as if unable to believe what he had just learned about himself, "When did this happen?" He questioned aloud.

If someone had asked him yesterday if would he be able to kill others, he would have vehemently and strongly said a resounding no. However, after only a single day in this world, he felt those convictions undergoing a change.

Melvin understood that it was both a combination of him seeing actual power that he could grasp with his own hands, and the fact that this was the first time his life was actually at stake.

A concept as old as time, the carrot and the stick. If he killed he would get more powerful, get more magical abilities, and enjoy himself in this world even more. If he didn't, he would lose everything, and die like a dog in some ditch like the one he woke up in.

A faint whooshing sound echoed as Melvin blew off the candle, and he laid down in his rugs, hands behind his head, and slowly contemplated this new change.

The mixture of the smoke from the candle, the fishy smell that pervaded the slums, and the intense pee that the breeze carried from the stables made for an interesting smell as he rested solemnly contemplating his own life, and more so where he stood relative to that issue of killing others.

After a while, his consciousness began to loosen its grip, before he drifted off to sleep.

...

"Good morning," A voice gently said, the sound soon integrated with Melvin's dream, and he unconsciously raised his arm on top of his face as the rest of his body curled up to gain some warmth.

Enjoying the feeling of the slight warmth coming off the coarse grey rug against his skin, a smile couldn't help but faintly widen his lips. Out of nowhere, he felt something hitting him squarely in the mouth, before a metallic taste soon followed.

His eyes groggily opened as the pain assaulted his senses when he felt someone gripping his shirt and his body soon began to rise.

The first thing that he saw was a very tanned man with a dark beanie and a grey sweatshirt looking at him with a smile.

Melvin's hands reflexively moved as he tried to push the man's hands from his collar, but to no avail, the man was too strong.

"Good morning," said the man once again, his grin widening even more.