Even if the sun hadn’t risen, he decided to get up, shower, and grab some breakfast before getting the laundry started. It wouldn’t be polite to return the coat without washing it first. It didn’t appear to have any blood on it, but he still wanted it to be clean when he returned it.
“Huh, it’s weird having someone help me like that,” Ian said to himself as he finally sat down on his folding lawn chair. “Other than Jen and my landlord, I’m not sure there’s been anyone else over the past year and a half.”
He shrugged. Everyone else’s anger and hatred didn’t matter now that he had finally accomplished his goal. Which meant that today he would be starting on a new one. He’d go back to the dungeon tonight and start his journey towards becoming a real adventurer. With none of the barriers in his way, there wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop him.
He honestly wasn’t even sure what he wanted to get when he finally started bringing in money. The apartment was small, but he didn’t really own anything. After his breakup with Beth, all his stuff had been taken by her movers before he had a chance to return. All that was left was a box of clothes that belonged to him. With the difficulties he had finding living arrangements, he now lived in one of the worst parts of town, where the landlord was just happy to have someone who didn’t disappear before it was time to pay the rent every week.
Between his crappy job and not making any money in the first dungeon, he was barely able to pay for the rundown apartment and still cover his food and metro pass every month. He was a single injury away from being homeless again, and he knew it. However, he had learned to do without anything for long enough that he didn’t particularly have any desire for more. Then again, he found it was easier to not want anything when he couldn’t have anything.
“But that changes today,” he said to himself as he willed his status to appear in front of him.
Name: Ian Spelling
Alias:
LVL: 100
Status:
STR: 546
END: 412
AGI: 414
WIL: 372
INT: 388
Skills: Prestige Mode (Inherent), Prestige Leader (Inherent)
Available Skill Points (SP): 1000
Ian was dumbfounded by what he saw. All his stats were originally below 50 points, with normal starting status ranging from 20 to 80 in most categories. Now he was on par with a normal level 100 adventurer. Which is why he nearly tipped over in his chair when he realized how much potential his new prestige mode skill gave him.
“I could literally be one and a half times stronger than a normal level 100 adventurer once I prestige and level up again,” he mumbled to himself before another realization hit him. “No, I would be even farther ahead than that because I would have three times the SP of a normal adventurer at that level.
“The way it is written also makes me think I will be able to prestige again at higher levels, which would make this skill even more amazing.” Ian shook his head before he started laughing. “If this were a game, everyone would call this a cheat. I’m just going to call it karma and make the best of it as I check out these skills I’ve been waiting so long for!”
Ian quickly willed the available skill page open and learned that skills were split up into multiple categories. Each category required different skill points to initially learn the skill, as well as having different requirements. For example, a normal Enhanced Body skill was purchased with 100 skill points. There were ten levels, and each additional level would cost another 100 skill points. Uncommon skills started at 500, though most of those were grayed out because the prerequisites were not met.
Ian didn’t bother looking at anything beyond uncommon because he wasn’t high enough of a level to have the 2000 SP required to purchase any of them. However, a few of the skills in the uncommon category he could see reminded him that there were also special skills that could be used for things other than fighting.
A thought struck him, and he began to search the list. There were quite a few cosmetic skills in both categories that he had always seen on others but had never truly considered selecting for himself. Things like glowing tattoos and permanent eye and hair color changes.
As he looked through the list, one uncommon skill caught his eye.
Conceal Identity (Toggled): Creates a hood filled with shadow that masks facial features and causes listeners to not be able to identify the user’s voice. The hood cannot be removed by physical means. Does not limit the user’s vision. Toggled ability.
He reread the skill’s description multiple times while thinking back on some of the other adventurers he’d met as an idea began to form in his mind. An idea that was only possible at level 100 and would possibly change the trajectory of his adventuring career. It was a decision he would have to make now because he had just hit level 100 and could create an alias.
While the AO would technically still be able to see his original identity, the information would be unavailable to anyone outside of the organization unless he told someone or it was leaked. If they did let it slip, the laws were set in stone, and there was always a lawyer who was willing to make a lot of easy money—even for someone like him.
The skill cost was 500 points, which was half of his current amount, but he selected it without any additional hesitation and watched it appear on his skill list.
He smiled as he looked at the normal skills he could choose. He saw a few utility skills he knew he would need to grab to efficiently tackle dungeons, especially since he was running them by himself. He also planned on getting the basic stat boosts to help him open more options down the road. Finally settling on a course of action, he decided to purchase the first two levels of Enhanced Body and Enhanced Mind to give him a larger boost while he leveled up again. He also picked up the Basic Item Storage skill because he knew it would be a requirement as soon as he started fighting monsters that dropped essence stones and loot. Bulky bags would probably just get him killed.
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Enhanced Body 2/10 (Passive): +100 status increase to STR, END, and AGI.
Enhanced Mind 2/10 (Passive): +100 status increase to WIL and INT.
Basic Item Storage 1/5 (Passive): Can hold up to 100 pounds of items in a special storage. The weight of the items stored is not transferred to the user.
Ian smiled as he got up and went to lie down in his shower. After what had happened to his body the night before, he wanted to make sure any mess was easy to clean up when he activated his prestige skill. Once he was naked and propped up as comfortably as possible, he willed Prestige Mode to activate and was greeted with a warning notification.
Warning! Would you like to activate Prestige Mode (Awakened)? Once this skill is activated, it cannot be undone. To proceed, verbally give an affirmative response.
Ian smirked as a flutter of excitement surged into his chest, “Activate Prestige Mode.”
Congratulations! You have achieved level 1! You have been awarded 20 skill points!
Instead of his body shrinking and moving like it had the previous night, Ian only felt like he had lost his breath for a moment. The colors in the room dimmed slightly, and his head felt a little more cluttered inside, but the pain he had been expecting never came. Looking at his stats, he found that he was already level one and his stats had been cut nearly in half—just like the skill promised.
He smiled when he found his skills still there waiting for him. Their effects provided a larger boost than his stats had even been before he originally hit level 100.
Giddy, he quickly got up and began gathering all of his gear around. He placed the coat the man had let him borrow the previous night into his item storage. He had to admit that it was kinda strange watching an item disappear into nothing or to suddenly appear in his hand when he wanted it to. After messing with it for a moment, he just shrugged and put his weapons and the rest of the contents of his duffel bag into the item storage.
“This would have been so useful on those plane rides during my internship. I’ll never have to check baggage again.” He mused before his eyes widened. “Shit, I forgot to set my alias before I reset my levels.”
He panicked for a moment as he brought up his status and sighed in relief. It was still showing that he could change it, and he knew It wouldn’t help to leave his alias unset if he was going to start using the Conceal Identity skill. It wasn’t like he was registered to this apartment under his legal name, and he walked in and out with his hood up every day.
“I know just what to set you as, too,” Ian said as he willed his alias to change. “She said I had ‘a zero’s future’, then lets at least make her right about something.”
Ian smiled as his new alias updated to show the word ‘Zero’ under his name. As Ian took in his status screen, he felt his eyes get blurry and his breath caught. It had been a horrible year and a half, but today was a fresh start. He was no longer the innocent and naive man who watched passively as his ex tore his future away from him. Now, he was Zero, the adventurer with unknown potential and a whole hell of a lot to prove.
The newly minted Zero pulled out the leather armor he had saved up for from his duffel and decided to put it on. Lots of adventurers walked around in their gear unless they were trying to hide who they were. Ian may have spent his time hiding, but Zero didn’t need to. If he was going to change himself, the time to start building his momentum was upon him.
*~*~*
Entering the dungeon, Ian was surprised at how easy it was to see in the normally dark cavern. He had always been able to see before, but instead of just the soft glow of the floor and walls, he could see everything clearly. He could now look all the way to the other side of the large cavern, catching a glimpse of the many slimes he would usually miss that were stuck in corners and between rocks.
“I can’t believe Beth and her friends never told me about this,” he mumbled. “Instead, they just treated me like I was stupid for missing them. Well, screw it, let’s clear this place out.”
He summoned his spear to his hand and advanced on the slime in front of him. He felt like the creature was moving in slow motion as he focused in on its core. It had taken him a long time to get used to the movements when he originally ran this dungeon, and he still occasionally missed if he wasn’t careful. Now, it was like the creature’s core was an apple floating in a barrel. Sure, it moved, but you just had to reach out and poke it.
He brought his spear forward and panicked as it flew through the slime's nucleus and embedded into the ground. Cursing, he pulled it back out as the creature lost its shape and oozed over the ground, definitively dead. He checked the needle-like blade and sighed in relief. It had scratches from burying itself into the cavern floor, but it wasn’t broken.
“Need to get used to this speed and strength,” he said as he walked towards the next slime. “If I don’t, I’m going to be killing these things with a staff in a moment.”
This time he gently jabbed at the slime, easily skewering its core without burying the spearhead into the ground. He was surprised when a notification popped up.
Congratulations! You have earned 1 level. You have achieved level 2. You have been awarded 20 skill points!
Ian read the message two more times before he screamed triumphantly into the cavern. He could feel a fire rising in his chest at the proof he could now level up normally. Even with the prompt saying his experience modifiers had been reset, he had still worried his leveling would be the same as it always had been. That single level up notification removed all doubts, and a sense of excitement jolted through his body!
He started dashing around the cavern and poking the slimes as he came upon them. With his newfound strength and his mind overflowing with elation, he rushed through half a dozen caverns before needing to catch his breath. Calling up his prompt, he nearly screamed again as he read the most recent notification.
Congratulations! You have earned 1 level. You have achieved level 7. You have been awarded 20 skill points!
A grin came unbidden to Ian’s face as he realized that he had out leveled this dungeon in the last ten minutes. While others wouldn’t be able to see it under his concealing hood, he knew his excitement would be visible to any newbies he might run into. He had so many options available to him right now. He had a status that was equivalent to that of an adventurer between levels 70 and 100, but he had never seen anything past the first two dungeons.
He knew the Rat Tunnel dungeon was close by, and it had a minimum party level of 5 and a maximum monster level of 20. It had been the last place he visited when he ran with his ex and her starting crew. They had spent quite a bit of time in there trying to find a way to get him to level, which brought up some bad memories for him. That left the next big dungeon that had a minimum party level of 10 and a maximum monster level of 50, called the Turen Crevasse.
Ian knew that monsters still gave experience when you were under level 100, but the diminishing returns started really kicking in when an adventurer’s level was significantly higher than their prey. He knew people who spent weeks in this dungeon and hit level 20 before they moved on, but it really slowed down once an adventurer hit level 10. Luckily, that was all he really needed.
Moving out, he decided to kill his way to the second or third floor, so the mob levels were higher. It took him nearly an hour to reach the third floor. Lashing out at the slime right next to the entrance provided him with the notification he had been craving.
Congratulations! You have earned 1 level. You have achieved level 10. You have been awarded 20 skill points!
With that, he smiled as he began to jog towards the entrance. Sure, he wasn’t in a huge hurry to level, but at the same time, he was excited to head over to the other dungeon and check it out. It was only midday, and he was usually in the Slime Caverns until late in the evening.
As he came out of the dungeon, he looked over and saw a familiar face sitting on one of the benches. Ian slowed down as Claire looked over at him for a moment before turning her attention back to her tablet. Despite his initial panic, he remembered that he was wearing armor and his conceal identity skill was still hiding his face, so Claire shouldn’t be able to recognize him.
He casually walked past as he watched her out of the corner of her eye. It was obvious that she was looking for someone, and he could only hope that she was gone before he came back later to return her father’s coat.