In a dark and haunting tunnel, a scraping sound could be heard echoing off the walls. After a few seconds, along with the sound growing louder, a faint light appeared from the darkness. At the center of this light was a man carrying a lamp made out of a Light Stone and metal. The man had an extremely pale face, sunken eyes, and a sheen of sweat caking his entire body. He had on a set of lightweight leather armor that was badly damaged and drenched in blood. In his other hand was a simple iron sword that he was barely maintaining a grip on. His boots were scrapping on the rough ground of the tunnel as he limped forward, panting in exhaustion.

This man's name was Cole Fowler. He was considered a weak adventurer, someone who could only become average even at the peak of his career, especially with his low grade job: Swordsman. Unfortunately for Cole, he didn't even have the chance of fulfilling his lackluster potential. You see, Cole was infected by an unusually powerful sickness. When he first came down with it, he just thought that it was his body protesting from all the physical activity that he subjected it to; or in the worst case, a fever. He was quickly proven wrong when it didn't go away even after a few days of resting in bed, and getting plenty of water. So Cole, filled with reluctance even as his condition grew steadily worse, gathered what meager savings he had and headed to the local Church of Life. He made his  “donation”, and was brought to the Priest. When he got there, the Priest covered Cole’s hands with his own and started chanting. At the end of the ten second chant, the Priest yelled “Heal!”. With a flash of bright light, Cole was supposedly healed. Except he wasn't. He had checked his Status, and saw the status effect “Sick” was still in place. When Cole told that to the Priest, the Priests face immediately flushed an extreme red. He started yelling at Cole, and a Paladin came to throw him out of the church.

Cursing the brutes that worshipped the God of Life for the umpteenth time, Cole went home. When he got home, he lay in his bed and contemplated what he was going to do. He realized that if a Priest using the divine magic Heal couldn't cure him, then there was no way in hell his body was going to beat the sickness himself. He couldn't go to a higher leveled Priest, both because the only Priest in town with a healing skill had just thrown him out of a church and because he spent the last of his money on that healing. Understanding that death was the only option left to him, Cole Fowler was filled with a NEED to die in a way that wasn't pathetic. If he stayed in his home, and died due to sickness, it was guaranteed to be a pathetic death. Cole decided to die fighting in the undead dungeon, the dungeon that had attracted him to make a home out of this middle-of-nowhere-town. He needed a way to get there quickly though, because the sickness was already starting to seriously affect his body.

Once again struck by the thought of his inevitable death, he became grimly happy. After all, there's no consequences for a person that is about to die, is there? Especially as he was a loner, with no family or friends. With that thought in mind, Cole had collected everything he would usually take for a dungeon dive, and went towards the stables. He made sure no one was looking before he stole a horse. Leading the horse towards the dungeon, he kicked it into gallop. Reaching the dungeon in record time, Cole double checked his gear, and went into the dungeon.

He then spent the next two hours going through the first four floors of the dungeon, fighting undead animals, avoiding traps, and maneuvering through the amatuer labrynth that was in the dungeon. He was injured by one of the undead wolves that appeared on the fourth floor, hence his damaged armor.

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Leading to the current situation of Cole looking like a dead man walking (Ironic considering the dungeon he was currently in), covered in wounds, and completely exhausted from the combination of the illness eating away at his vitality, the physical exertion of fighting, and the blood loss. However, despite that, he managed to get to his goal: The boss monster that was present on the fifth floor of the dungeon. Usually, even with his substandard strength Cole would be able to make it to the second boss at the tenth level, but with the sickness dragging down his performance and energy, he was only able to get to the first boss. The boss was an Undead Wizard, a monster that was really just a skeleton that could cast low powered death, or dark, spells. It was actually quite easy to beat, even for Warriors. This was because all you had to do to kill it was dodge the first few spells while sprinting towards it, and then hit it a few times. It had ridiculously low health because it was a low leveled monster that focused on stats that helped with magic.

Cole had just finished limping towards the boss room, and was standing in front of the giant doors that lead to it. Gathering his courage, he pushed against the doors, and they easily swung inwards. Behind the doors was a brightly light, dome shaped room, with torches every few feet along the walls. The room was bare, containing only the torches and the Undead Wizard. The Undead Wizard looked towards the door as soon as they opened, and glared at Cole. He wasn't worried about that though, as he had already killed it a few times before. Walking confidently into the room, Cole thought “This is probably where I’m going to die. At least I’ll die while fighting, instead of in my bed from this damn sickness.” The instant he walked passed the doors the Undead Wizard started to cast a spell. Ready for this, Cole started to sprint towards the monster, while preparing to roll when the first spell was fired at him. When the Death Bolt was fired at him, he easily rolled under it, and continued running. However, when he rolled under the spell, he also agitated his wound, and caused it to reopen. Ignoring the pain, Cole once again concentrated on the Undead Wizard that was casting another spell. This time it was a Shadow Ball, a low class spell that would wrap around and contain whatever it hit. Leaping to the left, Cole avoided it by a large margin, and kept running. The Undead Wizard started to retreat slowly, while still casting a spell. It only took a few more seconds for Cole to reach the monster, and he immediately started to slash at it, trying to interrupt the spell. Unfortunately for Cole, because of his wound and exhaustion, he wasn't fast enough with his attack, and the Undead Wizard was able to dodge backwards. The monster was done casting the Death Bolt by then, and with Cole just a few feet in front of it, there was no way for him to dodge. The black bolt of magic hit Cole in the center of his chest and he collapsed, never to move again.

Although Cole wasn't alive any longer, his death provided an opportunity for a new life to be born. As a result of Cole’s sickness, the death and shadow mana from the spells, and the extremely dense mana of the dungeon, a new monster was able to be born.  Cole’s body quickly started dissolving, turning into a dark black slime like substance. The black goop started to converge to the center of its mass, and stared to compress. By the end, all that was left was a pitch black ball, about the size of a grapefruit, on the floor.

Origin Monster: “Sentient Virus” has been born.