Chương 102: Chapter A. [A] Story of [A]n [A]dventurer named [A]dam

Adam's childhood was sadly a common tragedy. A generic start to an adventurer's life – one with a huge impact on him but one that could have been any others. He was born the eldest son of a [mystical-tailor] and an [simple-seamstress] in a small village bordering an important trade route.

His parents were some of the highest leveled in the village but were nothing in comparison to the wider world – their profession wasn't the most useful for where they lived, most of their income coming from the travelling [merchant]s who moved through once a month. Adam's family wasn't poor – they could afford a proper indoor void-toilet and channelling clean-shower – the simple luxuries setting them apart from the rest of the villagers despite being the lowest of conveniences from a big city.

For the first 6 years of his life as Adam slowly grew cognizant of the world, he had longed to be an adventurer. He loved the stories of daring capers – of robbing a dragon's hoard, of delving deep into a dungeon. On his 7 th birthday, his father began to teach him how to sew magical materials together with the intention that one day he would take over the family business.

Adam still longed for adventure but trusted his parent's judgement beginning his work with needles and learning all sorts of ingredients and dyes. This pigment increased resistance to temperatures working well for a [blacksmith]'s apron or [fire warrior]'s inner tunic. That thread glowed brightly in the presence of darkness making it perfect for [miner]s or adventurers looking to delve a dungeon. That wool was fluffed and provided a magical comfort while this leather was softer than satin.

Adam gained a younger sister and slowly grew up. Three years of study to become a tailor of some sort ingrained in his mind. On his 10 th birthday everything changed. Monster attacks had been getting more frequent and a particular raid was especially fierce. An army of poisonous centipedes dug through the wards and slaughtered over half the village – more importantly killing both of his parents.

Adam was distraught but needed to be strong for his younger sister – she was only three at the time and he needed to provide for her. His parents deaths hadn't been a big deal for the village – the majority of people still alive had either family they cared more about, or figures like the only [blacksmith] who had been more important. Everyone was sympathetic but no one really cared… and Adam struggled to make ends meet slowly selling everything in his house to buy food for himself and his sister.

On his 11 th birthday he had had enough. He needed more money – he needed a better job. He sold what was left of the house at a pittance and took his sister with him, a vague goal to be an adventurer still fresh in his mind. He hitched a ride with the passing merchant – an old man who remembered his parents and was willing to bring him along for free. They travelled for weeks before arriving at the nearest dungeon – an explosive dungeon with especially dangerous mobs.

Adam paid for an escort to bring him through, faint awe at the idea of linked dungeons too young to fully appreciate how unique it was but still excited by the sheer magic involved. His sister was held close to his chest as he passed through a strange portal the brief movement through pure blackness causing him to feel like vomiting and then they were through. Adam had heard this dungeon started off much easier than others – a perfect place to sink his teeth onto. The newly created city above was breathtaking.

Adam had never seen so much silver or such large buildings – a skyscraper rose up in the distance its solid black walls holding up a single glowing sign with "mana-corps" pulsing slowly up above. The funds from selling his family's home were almost gone but the goodwill of strangers helped him once again. An old crone of a woman – more wrinkle than flesh – found him wandering through an alleyway and promised to rent him a place for cheap.

She was a nice witch she promised and despite her strange décor was true to her word. Her house was the size of a shed from the outside but strangely larger on the inside full of skulls and jars of monster parts or plants. Adams's first proper delve of the dungeon went surprisingly well.

He was fighting the weakest of the weak and he had little combat experience or skill but he still managed to stab the strangely shaped worm-slime multiple times with a needle popping and shattering its thin skin and leaking metallic ooze about. Each day Adam went to the dungeon and cleared the tutorial monsters too weak to beat the lesser snakes guarding the way deeper into the dungeon. He brought back the metallic goo of these monsters and was slowly taught by the witch how to brew potions.

He wasn't the best at brewing but his apprenticeship with his father had helped him analyze different materials more than he would have thought. She really was a kind witch – despite the occasional look at his sister that rubbed him the wrong way –Adam was thankful for her guidance. Adam gained his first adventuring class a week into fighting the dungeon – he happily tossed his apprentice class and became a wind-needle mage the moment after.

All his skills but conjure-needle were lost and replaced in the class change but it was worth it that moment enough to push him into challenging the boss of the tutorial floor several times. The day he killed the "three lesser snake" boss was a good day – he carefully brought back the whole corpses and learned how to twist the parts into weak poisons by his new witch mother. His sister had started making potions, the witch teaching the child all of her secrets much younger than Adam would have liked.

She quickly surpassed him however making him believe she had already gained a class for it. These early days potions became a strong part of his fighting style. His sister would craft a bottle of paralysis and he would dunk his weapons into the poisons she made with love killing and progressing faster and faster. Everything for his sister. Everything for the last of the family he had. Days turned to weeks turned to nearly a year before something strange happened.

He got a quest which referred to him by "name" – except the name was wrong.

"Craig" the quest called him rewarding him with a pair of boots referred to as "Craig's Boots". And those quests kept coming.

"Craig's trial", "Craig's monster wave". It was beyond strange the world itself seemed to think his name was Craig. The system seemed to be malfunctioning – its natural quests wrong. Were they sent to the wrong person? Was Adam profiting off of quests meant for someone else? Or something… Adam wasn't a complete outcast from the rest of adventuring society and a chance encounter here or there was enough for his peers to learn his "name". Craig's new name stuck and nothing he did was enough to drive home the mistake.

… he didn't fight the name change too hard if he was being honest. After all Adam was the son of a tailor. Craig was the needle adventurer. The name change helped distance himself from that past – from remembering his parent's death and heal from the trauma. He remembered how much he had loved stories of adventuring as a kid and his position shifted from one of necessity to one solely delving for fun.

He was strong enough to make a profit – he could move out of the witches place any time but she watched his sister while he delved and he really did think of her as his new mother. As time went on his frantic delves to pay for his sister and him to live warped and morphed. He liked adventuring. He loved it in fact – the feeling of power of throwing himself against the dungeon. Of simple rules communicated properly.

Of outsmarting the dumb monsters – sometimes he imagined he was this strong as a kid, would it have been enough to protect his parents? Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. That was a bad road to head down so Craig ignored it and continued to adventurer day after day. He felt like the dungeon really understood him. He knew it was impossible, but he liked the dungeon and he imagined the dungeon liked him back. One day Craig joined a team for the first time.

They delved deeper than he had ever gone before and he found himself going through a portal into the facility. That was a shocking time – Craig felt in that moment the world was so much bigger than he had thought before. The facility was strange and the delve mostly fell apart but… he still had fun. He gained a glove that increased his strength against certain kinds of enemies immensely and accelerated his levelling immensely. Craig reached transcendent status before he was 30 years old.

That was insane in the grand scheme of things – he remembered his parents being considered high level when he was younger and they were both closer to level 60. Level 100, level 125. Both barriers were passed as he grinded and then… something strange happened. A voice in the dungeon connected and talked. A strange mental voice that echoed and felt… ancient? It felt like multiple similar sounding people all speaking at once the voices overlaid into a single one. <Hey! Craig, Big fan. Big fan.

Quick question, what would you be willing to do for power? How hard would you push if it meant becoming stronger than anyone else? Also, you planning on heading down to the hard mode ice caves? I'd love to see you face the yeti! > Before Craig could even make sense of the voice it disappeared. He stared about the room carefully examining each adventurer wondering if one of them were playing a prank on him. No one was looking at him but some glanced up when he stared and frowned causing him to glance away once more.

Craig still wasn't the best at confronting people. He'd fight anyone who asked but using words? That was harder somehow. He knew it was a personal problem but he still had it. Trying to respond to the voice Craig thought really hard over and over again. Who are you? Why do you want to know?. … Voice? I mean, I want to be strong. I am planning to visit the new floor but why do you care? The Yeti? Is that the boss on that floor? I haven't heard anyone talk about that yet what do you know?

But Craig received no response and slowly lost hope in talking to the mysterious voice again. He delved down into the hardmode ice floor, vaguely wondering if the yeti had spoke to him but dismissing it after taking a look at the beast. Craig fought, tossing ethereal needles at the creature watching them smash off the boss like they were soild. … focusing on the area at that moment he realized this floor was harder than he thought.

He had started dismissing the difficulty in the normal dungeon when the facility appeared – it was just so much more rewarding at his level to delve the strange structure in the void. Was that voice the dungeon? Has it started missing me now that I've been in the facility instead of its dungeon? … I've never heard of a dungeon talking before. I'm sorry I've been ignoring you? Voice? The voice did not respond.

Craig fought the yeti realizing more and more they countered him – he had begun relying on his glove too much that wasn't good. There was a strange lack of urgency to Craig's fight near the start – he thought he was much faster than the yeti and even if he couldn't damage the thing he could dodge it so worse case they were in a stalemate. As time progressed the yeti became faster however.

It jumped across the entire room – flying through hundreds of meters in a few seconds spikes shooting out from the snowman around him. Craig began to dodge in nearer and nearer misses – his wind manipulation pulling his body out of the way just in time. Finally he gave up and bypassed the yeti finding himself in the calming lake beneath. Floating back and forth he waited to be attacked before reading the information on the floor. It was simply a reward. A place of safety. The end of the dungeon.

Craig ever so slowly relaxed enough to take a small dip into the lake breathing out in shock at the density of mana calmly relaxing his whole body. It felt nice. I should bring my sister here some time. I have to get strong enough to bypass the yeti with her in my arms – but it should be possible? Craig went back to the grind. A new goal renewed his vigor and he flung himself at the facility again and again. He was hoping to clear it, but some random charming adventurer managed it instead.

He found a second reward area – finally beginning to socialize with the rest of the transcendents in the bar. Booze and the knowledge that everyone else here was a real adventurer helped loosen his lips for the first time in decades and he even made an unlikely friend – a vampire that understood him and understood his love for adventuring. Time passed and once again changes happened – a new training area full of demons. A giant tree-trunk and a truly colossal monster guarding the area from high above.

Craig was 34 years old when he learned about cultivation for the first time. He learned about it, and found he couldn't actually use it. He kept failing. He was kept away from it and flung himself at the process repeatedly when he was allowed once more. Slowly he began gaining a minor dependency on ambrosia. He attempted cultivation, he failed. He flung himself again. He failed. Months passed. Over a year of attempts almost stalling out his other practice.

Craig gave up once more and spent a few years slowly grinding up his skills to a 'mastered' status. Needle shot after needle shot. Wind step after needle storm after needle manipulation. Once a skill was fully mastered it was permanently branded into your soul. A class change couldn't remove it. A simple removal of the system couldn't replace it. Craig grew into his power. The majority of people went their entire life without mastering a skill and he mastered every single one he cared about.

Years passed before he was truly ready but finally he was ready to try again. He had gone back slightly to his roots – his sister created a load of potions for him each with different hopefully beneficial effects. Mana sight – a potion to temporarily give him a view of the mana in his body. Stable body – to hopefully prevent himself from turning into the wind or a porcupine of needles. Mana touched – to increase his ability to manipulate mana.

Stacked up with potions Craig grabbed a wind-pill and downed it washing the burning dot away with his potions. His body twisted and then stabilized slightly – his grip deep inside of himself attempting to forcefully control the mana running wild. It felt unbalanced. It wasn't enough he was going to fail. As he was sitting there grimacing he found a second pill float up towards his face – an unmarked one his systemless body no longer able to see what mana type it was.

Accepting it after a moment of debate Craig swallowed the needle pill immediately feeling his throat ripped apart. The pill had been smooth and regular but it truly felt like it was poking his throat and then belly as it travelled down. It hurt… but it felt right. His bones shifted slightly becoming metallic and more pointy his sinuous threading through them like… well a needle.

His lungs swirled with Wind and expanded out small hollow channels about his body as he struggled and fought and finally got himself under control. Standing up then running out into the field, a dull ache of pain suppressed by the knowledge he had done it. He killed a demon. He killed another. At some point both arms and both legs had become sharp pointed needles. His mind felt more feral than he would have liked as he flew about his whole body a weapon.

His mind was too focused on holding the mana inside of himself stable to care. He was doing it. His potions ran out but he didn't notice – his body had been modified by this point to no longer need them and he fought and killed and fought some more. Days passed in constant fighting. Craig felt like he was losing control of himself but then he remembered his sister.

He remembered and came back to himself panting in the pierced and punctured corpse of demon that looked like endless repeating fractals or maybe a sea horse. Craig fought with more purpose than before finding his mind strengthening and separating more and more from his body. He was in control. This was his path. He was an adventurer. Willpower flared and his twisted face became his once more.

His body was still a mess – had even grown worse by this point more monster than man – but he was himself and that was all he cared about. The Craig-Monster fought for 2 whole weeks before dying and finding himself slowly coming into consciousness inside the womb of the resurrection machine. His status blinked in the corner of his eye – it seemed confused shifting first stats and then level settling at a solid 240. He couldn't remember what he was before.

He couldn't remember how many levels he had gained in these past two weeks he just knew it was massive. He felt different, his status… he had a new title.

"Prodigy". Which granted the skill "[internal mana manipulation]" which had already been mastered. His memory was hazy – the most important parts his love for adventuring and his sister still deep and burning but a lot of his less important memories fuzzy and faint. Slowly those healed as well and he was deposited out of the resurrection machine unceremoniously. Years had passed but Craig still recognized the voice that spoke into his mind at this time. <Hey! Craig, I'm stoked. You finally did it!

I've been rooting for you! > Hey voice… I'm not sure why you are speaking to me now when you ignored me for so long but… I think I get it. <… > You wanted me to find myself didn't you? <… yes? > Craig ignored the hesitance of the voice. It was playing dumb but he knew the voice had been with him all this time. He could feel its sincerity deep in his bones. Thank you. Craig responded. I'm going to rest and then attempt to cultivate once again. This time will be better I think I know what I did wrong. Thank you.

Innearth stared down at Craig in slight confusion. He really had just forgotten to contact him again. I guess it turned out fine in the end? Innearth thought to himself, watching the adventurer pull himself back to the bar and crash in a spare room. With this I'm sure Craig can become a god someday soon. New thing to look forward to!