Prologue

  You might think that a world full of magic and monsters is bound to be full of excitement and adventure, and you would be right.

  Well, that was the case for the first few thousand years. But it didn't start off too great for me though. I was hunted for several years for the necromantic class I awakened. It was a terrifying part of my life since capture would mean death and escape also meant spending every second with the possibility of getting devoured by any number of powerful beasts lurking in the forbidden lands. Yet it pushed me to go far beyond my limits to survive and made me who I am today.

  Now that I look back at those times, I feel a sense of nostalgia for what was essentially my true birth.

  Everyone awakens a class when they come of age, yet mine didn’t help me thrive in my chaotic world but rather put my life at risk for every second that I spent among my fellow humans. I was hunted by the Inquisition for my illegal class and then hunted by the creatures in the forbidden lands when I fled there for refuge. Desperation has a way of squeezing out all one's potential in those kinds of situations.

  I spent several years on death’s door, yet I grew incomparably faster than the norm thanks to all of those experiences. Not to mention all the discoveries I made.

  Back in the day, necromancy was pretty much what you would expect. A bunch of grave robbers amassing a small army of undead but often being slain before they could do anything impressive or cause much damage. It wasn’t too dissimilar to other magick classes, but religion and superstition often cause issues for dark mage classes like my own.

  Back in my youth, I couldn’t use my standard class-given abilities properly against the stronger opponents I had to overcome in the forbidden lands, so I always had to outsmart my enemies and relied heavily on stealth. That was how I discovered my affinity with shadow magick.

  In hindsight, it seemed very likely that both necromancy and shadow magic were almost equally suited for me. I was able to master both to such a high degree that I was able to merge the two vastly distinct magicks into a brand-new path to power.

  And that was how Shadow Necromancy was born. I have no way to prove if I was truly the first person to ever discover it, but I feel confident in calling myself its father, due to the vast number of discoveries I made in the field and the degree to which I harnessed its powerful potential, and the system agreed with that, granting me the Trailblazer title.

  The new path I forged for myself allowed me not only to return to the civilized world without fear of being hunted and establish myself as a powerhouse in my world. Back then, I was heavily focused on stealth and evasion like an assassin build would, yet I used summoned minions to carry out my kills from a distance making me a very tough enemy to deal with.

  Unfortunately, the following centuries slowed my growth significantly and I turned to rifts and dungeons to explore other worlds and battle stronger creatures. Each time I believed myself to be at the peak of strength, someone would appear that I would have no chance of defeating.

  Luckily for me, necromancy and shadow magick were my core and I was extremely hard to pin down or fully kill, meaning even when I lost, I simply licked my wounds and went back to the grind learning from each mistake.

  A bunch of stuff happened in the following few centuries. Higher levels allow for longer lives but my abilities allowed me to far outlive even the high-level elites. But eventually, you find yourself at the top of the food chain with nothing left that can easily challenge you.

  But even as I became the strongest being in my world and reluctantly assumed the role as its default guardian–gaining the title of Ascended and standing on equal footing with God-like beings from across the universe–I was still striving for higher summits.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I watched the millenniums pass by. Nations rising and falling, my own existence becoming only a distant story in the minds of mortals. I befriended several Ascended and fought against others. I often traveled outside of my world and visited many civilizations building and refining my knowledge and power in the process. I fought in battles that destroyed entire worlds and met beings beyond normal comprehension.

  Yet my life always felt hollow. The stronger you get, the harder it is to climb your way up your path to power. Something even more noticeable when the path is one no one has ever walked before.

  I lived an exceedingly long life and gained immense power, but I never felt fulfilled. The peak I was seeking was always separated by an uncrossable chasm, no matter how powerful I got I could never reach the other side. The new path I blazed had many flaws but I was too high up to be able to modify its foundations, leaving me stagnating with no hope of any significant further growth.

  For a person like me, that was the worst thing in the world. I chased the peak of power ever since I awakened and had become addicted to the thrill. To find myself stopped in my tracks was unacceptable, so I turned to the one thing that could push me beyond my limits. The system.

  Nobody knows what it is or where it came from. All we know is what effects it has on the universe. It’s a primal power like gravity, space, or time. All are equal concepts of reality that we can influence but none we can fully tame or comprehend. It is a supporting pillar of the universe, an entity without which life would never be able to significantly harness the arcane.

  And so, I spent entire eras studying it. As someone who was once a necromancer, working with souls wasn’t surprising, but nothing other than the system can affect the souls’ core. It's the place where your class and Skills are imprinted and are untouchable even to the strongest Gods.

  But I persisted. I traveled across countless worlds and realms, chasing after rumors and myths. Studying hundreds of classes related to the soul or spirit, even going so far as to infiltrate the astral planes and underworld in my pursuit of the elusive knowledge.

  Despite not fulfilling my goal, I did find many other powers and techniques that I further developed and incorporated into my path, gaining even greater recognition from the system. My interactions with other worlds also changed how others perceived me. Instead of the deity of death and darkness, I was remembered as in my old home world, I became known as a wise and scholarly researcher with an insatiable hunger for new knowledge.

  Despite the attitude of most others at my level, I was always open to discussing and exchanging with others. Transcended, Champions, Ascended, and even mortals would flock to me or my avatars, trading information or mystical artifacts with me for my help or guidance.

  Before I knew it, my past life of violence and battle was replaced by my fascinating research of the world's many mysteries. All in an attempt to push through my bottleneck and reach what lies beyond the rank of Ascended.

  Yet I could never quite give up on my desire to rise higher. The system becomes less useful the stronger you get, and for a being almost half a million years old I rarely received its attention. I sometimes get a new notification every once in a while, notifying me that I have developed a new Skill or forged a new path, but I pay little attention to it. None would help me and usually served as simple side projects or distractions.

  I had long given up hope for augmenting my soul core and rectifying my foundation, but I persisted on my path nonetheless. Most other stunted Ascendeds simply relax and enjoy life after years of struggle, sometimes being worshipped like Gods, but I never enjoyed being the center of attention. Most of my life was spent in seclusion or disguised when I met others.

  I had considered simply locking myself and my ‘Tombs’ away for a dozen hundred thousand years in hopes that new discoveries in the future might reveal what I need, but in the end, something interesting appeared before I could properly fulfill that plan.

  Information of a newly formed God-level dungeon, found on the outskirts of a newly integrated galaxy was sold to me in exchange for my help in clearing it. My days of battle were long behind me, but the young generation of Ascended were eager to challenge themselves against a dungeon with enough danger to threaten them. Similar to how I used to feel, they longed for more challenge without being desperate enough to venture into the bloody Ascended level realms.

  I had gotten requests to interfere with the occasional war or cosmic dispute, but I usually ignored them, unless the offer was too good to pass up.

  I was going to do the same for this God-level dungeon, but I did send one of my avatars to check it out on a whim.

  What I learned from that single decision changed everything about my future plans, and I rushed over to the raid. Even taking charge of the delve despite not being its organizer. Even though each of the members were godly figures in their own rights, my personal power and experience far exceeded their own, many had even asked favors or guidance of me in the past, so I had no issue doing as I pleased.

  We all entered that dungeon, but I never returned.

  I did wonder what people would say about my disappearance inside that place, but only for a moment. I never did care about what people thought that much, even if I did inadvertently become the most famous Ascended for my openness to mingle and trade knowledge. I remembered thinking about how I met most of the new Ascended and more often than not, helped guide them on their paths. My many avatars strewn across the hardest dungeons meant that most strong beings encountered me at one point or another.

  My last thought before defying the heavens was to wonder what the world would be like without me. Would it continue on like I never existed, or would the mark I left be sufficient enough that my legacy endures?

  With all the paths I had advanced and new powers I had created, would beings be able to reach as high on their own or did existence and interference have an impact?

  Either way, it didn't really matter. My ego was never so frail as to require the praise or approval of others. The reason I became so well-known and respected like some cosmic wise old man was because I wanted to reach further.

  And what dwelled within that dungeon was my key to achieving that goal.

  After all my efforts and even after discovering new

  ways to cheat death.

  After hundreds of millennia of struggle.

  I finally died.