The moment he saw the kill notifiikael colpsed to the ground, too exhausted to evehe rest of the notifications. The mental strain of staying on guard, knowing that a single mistake could cost him his life, had taken a huge toll. Not to mention the pain he endured during the fight, whiow felt even worse as the adrenaline faded.
He took a deep breath out of exhaustion but instantly regretted it when a sharp pain shot through his ribs. "That orc really messed me up. I'm so ihat evehing hurts," he thought, gng at the orc chief's lifeless body. "But at least I'm ier shape than him," he mused, still shaken by how close he had e to death.
Sigh
"I didn't expect things to get this dangerous when I accepted the Record’s offer. It’s only been, what, 3 or 4 days? And I'm already this badly injured," he reflected. "But then again, in just 3 or 4 days, I've bee what some might call a superhuman. So, I guess it bances out."
Mikael felt a pit in his stomach as he thought, "No, seriously, that was way too dangerous. If that orc had been a speed type instead of just strong, I’d be 100% dead right now."
"Maybe I should leave this world? It’s holy too dangerous—what if I find an easier one?"
He mulled over the idea for a while, trying to push through the pain, but remained undecided. "I could leave, but how I be sure my progress won’t slow down if I ‘escape’?"
The uainty g him, and the paiainly wasn’t helping him think clearly. "I’ll leave, get some healing in the Records, and then decide whether or not to e back," he finally resolved.
"Records, I want to leave this world."
[Eje from the current world is impossible due to the host's grave injuries. However, do not lose hope. You use a Force Leave to exit a world under any circumstances, depending on the world’s strength. For this world, the cost is only 10K LP.]
[Do you wish to pay?: Yes / No]
[Note: If you do not have enough LP, you may take on a debt with a ‘low’ i rate.]
When he saw the notifications, Mikael eechless, with only ohought running through his mind: "Fuck you, Records." Even someone as generally calm and calcuted as him couldn’t help but feel rage at the opportunistic message from the Records.
Internally seething, Mikael still tried to keep a clear head. "Leaving this world is clearly impossible right now, so my only option is to get some healing in a city. But maybe... maybe I don’t eveo get medical help. With all the orcs I’ve killed, I should have leveled up enough to raise my vitality to the point where I could recover from these broken bones in just a few days. Plus, I don’t know if the people here even have the same regeion ability. If I’m ‘unique,’ I definitely don’t want to end up on aing table."
"There are only two reasoions: 1) Go to a city hospital areated quickly for a price, or 2) Stay at an inn a myself heal naturally. It’ll take longer and hurt more, but it’s probably safer."
"Holy, I’m too paranoid to just walk into a hospital and hope for the best. The worst part is that my healing factor probably isn’t even that rare, but I’m not willing to risk it."
After making his deikael returo the orc chief's corpse to retrieve its core. Even ih, the orc's body remaiough, but after some effort, he mao extract the core and pced it in his backpack. He then made his way to the spot where he had been ambushed earlier, took the core from that ord cut off its two ears. This brought the total tally of his ort to: 1 orc chief and 31 normal orcs.
He began his slow, painful jourhrough the forest toward Onissa City. The walk was anything but rexing. Each step was a struggle due to his injuries, but at least the pain wasn’t getting worse. ‘That must mean my injuries aren’t worseniher,’ Mikael thought, trying to find some fort iuation.
After several long hours of walking, he finally caught sight of Onissa City at the dusk. As he approached the gates, he noticed the many stares he received. He couldn’t bme them—he was quite the sight. His left arm was dangling uselessly, his leather armor looked like it had been through a war zone, and to top it all off, he was covered in blood. And this time, it wasn’t just orc blood.
When Mikael was about to pass the city gate, he was interrupted by one of them. 'Excuse me, do you need help finding the hospital?' the guard asked politely.
Mikael, still catg his breath, quickly replied, 'No, I’m fi looks worse than it really is. I just ghed up while hunting,' he lied through his teeth.
The guard accepted his answer auro his post. Mikael didn’t give the iion much thought as he ehe city. He noticed a few gnces in his dire but, fortunately, no one else stopped him.
He soon arrived at a two-story stone and wood medieval inn, it's the pce where he rented a room for 10 days. Upoering the lively building, he was greeted by the innkeeper, a gentle middle-aged woman named Carol. She fussed over him as soon as she saw his injuries and, to be ho, his currently terrible appearance.
It took Mikael a few mio calm her down, promising that he would take care of his injuries, which seemed to ease her worries.
Normally, he would have been a having to spend time reassuring her, given that they were essentially strangers. But he saw that she was simply a kind soul, and, for some reason, he felt a strange warmth from being 'taken care of'—a feeling almost unknown to him. After all, he had always been alone and had to fight to survive since he was young.
He was kicked out of the orpha the age of 8. After that, he tried to make money legally, but it didn’t work out, so he turo stealing. At first, he was terrible at it and often got caught, which usually earned him a beating. But over time, he got better at it even formed a gang at the age of 14, thinking it would be better to work in a group than solo.
Ohing that remained stant was that he was always on guard and surrounded by people society wouldn’t sider ‘good.’ This certainly didn’t help him develop a positive view of the world. So, seeing that kind souls existed did him some good, but it wasn’t something he was used to. It made him smile for a few seds before he stopped thinking about it ao his room.
Onside, he ehe water basin in his chamber. The water was repced every m, making it cold. Mikael removed his bloody clothes and washed himself with difficulty. Once , he put on the spare clothes he kept in his room in case he o ge between his casual outfit and his hunting gear without having to leave the world juft for that.
He then y down on the bed, where he quickly tried to fall asleep, or at least he would have if his body wasn’t hurting too much to let him rest. 'I’m so tired, but now I ’t even sleep!? Seriously, what do I do now? I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know how to heal my injuries either. My only hope is that my vitality stat will help with the healing, and I just o stay still so I don’t make things worse. Now there’s nothing to do but wait.'
Mikael y there, lost in thought for a while, until he suddenly remembered, 'Wasn’t there a notification about my skills after the fight?'
He then checked the system logs, added by the System Tools Upgrades, and found the notification.
[Because of the life-ah battle, your skills have greatly progressed: Unarmed Martial Arts Mastery +12%, Footwork Mastery +30%, 6th Sense +18%, Swordsmanship Mastery +60%]
[Your skill Footwork Mastery has reached the required proficy. Do you want to evolve it to the level for 20 LP? Yes No]
Mikael accepted, feeling a warm sensation in his body for a moment before it faded. 'It’s the same feeling I got when I upgraded my swordsmanship skill, but I wonder what it actually is.'
Mikael thought about it for a while, since he had time to kill. 'I KNOW, or at least I think so. I remember the System said I couldn’t deactivate my skills because they’re lio my soul. So it would makes sehat upgrading my skills would affect my soul. That warm feeling must be my soul—or somethied to it.'
'Now, what should I do to pass the time? Hmm, I could check out the new effey skills and my status window. There should be some ges. Yeah, let’s do that.'
[Footwork Mastery: Tier 0, Level 2 SkillDescription: This skill represents the user’s knowledge, experience, and mastery of footwork.
Bes: Allows the user to learn and apply all knowledge reted to footwork more quickly.
30% → 37.5% faster movement speed when not in bat.
15% → 18.75% faster movement speed when in bat.
Current progress: 22%]
Mikael leased with the skill upgrade. Even though it wasn’t a huge boost, it still increased his bat power. Afterward, he checked his status window and found something surprising.
[Name: Mikael Angelini
Race: Humah-in World)
Lifespan: 21/99
Overall Power: Tier 1
Military Rank: Recruit 0/10 MP
Global Level: 25Experience: 39.7K/39.7K XP (MAX)
Css: Sword MasterLevel: 26/50Experience: 17K/18.2K XP
Stats:
Strength: 63 → 88
Agility: 91 → 100 (MAX)
Endurance: 64 → 89
Vitality: 63 → 100 (MAX)
Perception: 62 → 100 (MAX)
Active Skills: None
Active/Passive Skills:
Body Refining Teique: Tier 0, Level 3
Passive Skills:
Unarmed Martial Arts Mastery: Tier 0, Level 1
Footwork Mastery: Tier 0, Level 1 → 2
6th Seier 0, Level 1
Swordsmanship Mastery: Tier 0, Level 1 → 3
Life Points (LP): (-30) 110]
"Hey, System, why is there a 'MAX' after my global level and three of my stats?"
[For ylobal level, it’s because your race (Humah-in) is a Tier 0 race, which only reach level 25 before maxing out. If you want to tinue leveling up, you will o ge to a Tier 1 race.]
[Note: When you ge races, you will lose all the stats and bonuses provided by your current race. In exge, all the XP used to reach level 25, along with ara accumuted XP, will be transferred to your new race.]
[The 'MAX' after your stats is caused by stat limits. Stat limits refer to the maximum number of stats allowed by a race. For example, your current race has a maximum stat limit of 100 for the five physical stats and 30 for the INT and SPI stats. Your energy stat is also unusable.]
[Note: Ara stats are not lost and will be transferred once you acquire a race with a higher stat limit.]
" I still upgrade my skills and use body refining teiques to improve the quality of my stats after reag 100 in a stat?"
[Yes, all skills are not limited by your stats and tio be used and leveled up. The same applies to body refining teiques.]
'That ges things. Now that my stats have reached 100, which is the current max, I ’t get stronger as quickly as I have in the past few days. This means I should probably focus on unlog the Race Gain System instead of the Training System. I’d get more immediate bes from upgrading my raaybe I could foproving my skills and start refining the quality of my stats through body refining.'
Mikael sidered different sarios before making a decision. 'I’ll just foy skills. Even if I get a better race with, let’s say, a stat limit of 500, I’ll eventually hit that cap and stressing again. But skills don’t have a limit, as the system mentioned. It will just get harder tress if I’m too weak.'
