Chapter 67: First Journey [5]

Rael opened his status the moment the last of the spider’s heat left the air.

╔══════════ STATUS ═════════╗

Name: Rael

Race: Human

Level: 13 → 14

Tier: Awakened

Main Class: Analyze (E-Rank), Infernomancer (B-Rank)

Copied Class: Frostheart (A-Rank) (8%)

Bloodline: Abyssal Sovereign

Stage: Dormant

Effect: +100% Growth Multiplier

━━━━━━━━ ATTRIBUTES ━━━━━━━━

Strength: 42 → 44

Agility: 48 → 50

Mana: 46 → 48

Vitality: 42 → 44

Intelligence: 10 → 11 (Sealed)

Unallocated Stats: 8

━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES ━━━━━━━━━

Souls: 23 → 73

HP: 44 / 44

━━━━━━━━ SKILLS ━━━━━━━━━━━

Inferno Bolt (Expert), Hellfire (Expert), Flame Manipulation (Master), Frost Bolt (Novice), Ice Armor (Apprentice), Frost Manipulation (Novice)

━━━━━━ BLOODLINE SKILLS ━━━━━━━

Conceal (Grandmaster)

╚═════════════════════════╝

Skill Upgraded —

Ice Armor (Novice) → Ice Armor (Apprentice)

The numbers were higher. The difference was already noticeable in the way his body settled after the fight. Strength and vitality had climbed together; the shallow cuts felt less relevant, and the residual ache in his shoulders had faded faster than it should have. Agility showed in the cleaner recovery steps he had taken at the end of the battle. Mana sat deeper in his core, ready to answer the next call without the thin edge of strain he had felt earlier in the day. Even the single point of Intelligence mattered. The sealed attribute still frustrated him—he still did not know who or what had locked it—but any movement upward was proof that the lock was not absolute. If it could rise, it could eventually break.

He allocated nothing yet. The eight free points waited for a clearer sense of what the Wildlands would demand next.

The growth itself was the part that stayed with him as he started walking again. On Titan he had read the public reports and the quieter family records about average progression. Most new awakeners spent weeks clawing from level ten to fifteen. Parties of carefully balanced roles measured their gains in single levels per successful hunt, sometimes less. Cores were shared. Experience was divided. Here he had stepped outside the walls alone, killed one Savage-tier spider, and moved a full level while adding a meaningful stack of souls. The Abyssal Sovereign bloodline doubled everything that could be doubled. Analyze let him keep and slowly understand a second high-rank class. Infernomancer already gave him pressure, control, and finishing power that many pure fire mages took months to stabilize. Frostheart, even at a reduced rank and low mastery, had already saved his life and opened a second axis of attack.

By every ordinary measure the combination was unfair.

He still felt behind.

The feeling was not rational, and he knew it. His family had declared him classless in front of the entire capital. They had stripped his name and sent him away with a payment that was closer to a dismissal than a severance. In their eyes he remained the failed son, the one who had proven the bloodline could produce waste. Every level he gained, every skill that answered when he called, was still being measured against that public judgment. He wanted them to see the numbers. He wanted the elders who had nodded along with the expulsion to understand they had discarded the wrong person. The desire was blunt and more than a little childish—he could admit that without effort. Wanting acknowledgment after being erased was not a sophisticated motive. It was simply human. He had not yet grown past it.

He looked up. Both suns sat near their peak. In Aetherion that meant half the long daylight cycle was already gone. One full day here equaled two on Titan; night would arrive in roughly twenty-four hours of this realm’s time. He could not afford to be caught deep in the Wildlands after dark. Higher-tier monsters moved more freely once the twin suns set, and most sane awakeners returned to the walls before that hour. He was not yet strong enough to treat the rule as optional.

His gear had held. The short sword showed no new notches worth worrying about. The Nightfall Armor had taken web and impact without serious damage; he scraped the last sticky residue off while walking. The problem was not equipment quality. It was coverage. Hunters worked the zones nearest the city so thoroughly that low- and mid-tier monsters were sparse. If he wanted consistent fights he would have to move farther out, and distance on foot was a tax he could not keep paying. A mount had just moved up the list of necessities maybe a tamed horse or an wolf as he can’t afford any flying type beast as they are dangerously expensive even for him or he can copy a beast tamer class which would make things much easier.

An hour of steady travel produced no new contacts. The forest remained quiet in the way that suggested recent passage of other hunters rather than true emptiness. Then he saw the claw marks.

They were cut deep into the bark of a mature tree, higher than a man could comfortably reach, the grooves still pale at the center. Fresh. He crouched, found the corresponding prints in the softer ground, and began to follow. The trail led him through a denser stand of trees where the light thinned again. After several hundred meters a low, continuous growl reached him—close enough to be distinct, far enough that he was not yet in its line of sight.

Rael slowed, adjusted his path to keep cover between himself and the source of the sound, and moved forward with the careful steps of someone who had already learned that the Wildlands rewarded patience more than noise. The next fight was close. He intended to meet it on his feet and on his terms.

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A/N:

(If you are reading this Chapter first of all I’m already thankful for purchasing premium Chapters and second to keep up with my sloppy work. I know the start of the novel was very fast forward and reached its conclusion very fast in future if I get time maybe I will fix those Chapters and lastly thank you for your support. Keep supporting by giving Golden Tickets and Power Stones. )