Chương 32: Loot And More Skills

A rather ominous black gate, swirling with fog and poor intentions, slides out of the ground in front of me with all the dramatic flair of a final act reveal. I ignore it. Mental checklist time. First: open the sparkling treasure chest that spawned alongside the gate. Second: be disappointed. Third: skill selection. Fourth: be disappointed again. Fifth: allocate free points. Sixth: dramatically walk toward the final zone. I pause. Yes. This is an excellent plan.

I stalk toward the chest with the solemn gravitas of someone who has accepted emotional damage as a recurring feature of her new reality and flip it open. Inside sits a muted gray ring, a pair of white fingerless gloves—both absolutely infested with runes—and— … I wrinkle my nose.

"Gross." A fist-sized knot of bruised gray flesh, wrapped in sagging, off-white silk stretched so thin it reveals dark shapes shifting beneath the surface. The membrane glistens unevenly, tacky in places, and ends in a twisted, hardened tear where it was ripped free. Nothing about it looks finished. Nothing about it looks dead. And nothing about it looks like it should ever be touched by anything capable of thought.

Naturally, I pluck the first two items out of the chest immediately and dump the memory of whatever that is straight into the mental garbage chute. I refuse to even let Inspect touch it. That was absolutely the consumable item. A small shudder runs through me before I can suppress it. Truly horrific. Even my ever-expressive tail has gone completely still. Whether that's from lingering disgust or unfiltered judgment toward whoever thought that was a good idea, I couldn't say. Either way— Distraction time.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Deathward Band (Epic)] A dull gray ring etched with a shallow runic pattern. The metal feels heavy and inert, as if it absorbs something unseen. Runic Patterns: Greater Death Corruption Suppression (25%) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Pallweave Gloves (Rare)] A pair of immaculate white silk gloves woven from corpse-silk strands refined by the Death-Touched Weaver.

The material is impossibly smooth and cool to the touch, resisting stains and wear despite its origin. Runic Patterns: Skill: Silken Grip ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Silken Grip (Rare)] A passive technique woven into the Pallweave Gloves through refined corpse-silk runes. (Passive) The user's grip is reinforced by adaptive silk tension, greatly reducing the chance of weapons or held items being dislodged by force, impact, or sudden movement. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Excellent.

A perfect balance of highly useful and deeply concerning. The gloves are the useful part. The ring is the concerning part. Everyone knows how this works. You only get items like that right before they become relevant, and I would very much prefer not to discover what a status effect named "Death Corruption" does to me through firsthand experience. … Unfortunately, I don't think I have much of a choice. So I commit the most complex runic structure I've encountered so far to memory and slip the ring on.

Then I immediately slip it back off. Along with my other two rings. Right. The gloves go on first. I did know that. Naturally, I memorize their runic pattern as well. This growing mental archive of runes is definitely going to be useful later. Probably. … Hopefully. Before reality has time to object, I swap the gloves for my handmade ones. My tail swishes in immediate approval. Nine point five out of ten. Extremely comfy. Loot handled. Disappointment processed. Time for step three.

I open my status and poke the skill selection notification. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Skill Selection activated. Please choose a Skill [Celestial Momentum (Epic)] {New Skill} Bind motion, impact, and intent into a continuous astral flow. (Passive) Successful movement-based attacks generate Momentum stacks, increasing attack speed, turn control, and stability. Momentum rapidly decays while not attacking. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Executing a clean lethal strike grants doubled Momentum stacks. [Orbiting Footwork (Rare)] {New Skill} Maintain constant lateral motion around a chosen foe. (Passive) Continuous circling gradually increases lateral movement speed and perceptive clarity. Completing a full orbit enhances the precision of the next attack against that target. [Severing Arc (Rare)] {New Skill} Refine cutting trajectories toward structural weak points.

(Passive) Attacks against vulnerable areas gain improved angle tolerance and follow-through efficiency. Effectiveness increases against unbalanced or distracted targets. [Starlit Descent (Rare)] {New Skill} Control descent and blade alignment during aerial strikes. (Active) While descending, attack accuracy and trajectory stability are increased. Landing generates a brief destabilizing impact on nearby enemies. Scales with Dexterity.

[Fluid Escape (Rare)] {Skill Upgrade} A refined astral movement technique emphasizing fluid reentry. (Active) Instantly shift a short distance by slipping through astral motion, reducing recovery time and improving movement continuity upon reappearance. Minor positional correction is applied to prevent immediate obstruction. The post-step accuracy bonus is preserved. Scales with Dexterity. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I nod, genuinely impressed. Now that is a proper skill selection. No filler. No obvious traps.

Every option is useful in at least one scenario, and there's even an Epic sitting right at the top like it knows it belongs to me. As for which one I choose— ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Skill Selection confirmed. You have gained the Class skill [Celestial Momentum (Epic)]. Skill has been automatically placed into an open slot. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Obviously.

I activate my second skill selection as well, though it turns out to be mostly repeats, plus one Uncommon that I skim, evaluate, and immediately dismiss on principle. Therefore— ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Skill Selection confirmed. You have gained the Class skill [Severing Arc (Rare)]. Skill has been automatically placed into an open slot.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This one took slightly more thought, but I do have a well-documented habit of dramatically divorcing heads from bodies, and this seems tailor-made to support that lifestyle. Step three: complete. Step four—anticipated disappointment—mercifully skipped, thanks to the System briefly remembering how to be generous. Which means… Stat time. I pull up the window.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Stats Vitality: 42 Strength: 103 Dexterity: 505 Perception: 334 (+5) Charisma: 10 Free Points: 180 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hm. The temptation to dump nearly every single point straight into Perception and chase another threshold skill is… … Very tempting. My tail gives a slow, contemplative sway. Then I sigh. And decide not to. Instead, I bring Vitality up to one hundred and Strength to two hundred, then dump the remainder into Perception without ceremony.

The moment the points settle, I suck in a sharp breath and nearly lose my footing as my body lurches—half a second of pure recalibration as my Vitality and Strength effectively double all at once. Ah. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Stats Vitality: 100 Strength: 200 Dexterity: 505 Perception: 369 (+5) Charisma: 10 Free Points: 0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I recover quickly, hopping in place a few times to let everything settle into its new configuration. Muscles feel denser. Heavier. More present.

My heartbeat steadies faster than it has any right to. Note to self: massive stat increases are simultaneously highly disorienting and deeply, deeply concerning in how good they feel. My ears stand tall with smug pride. I am significantly stronger than I was approximately five minutes ago. Which is probably for the best.

The dragon is almost certainly higher level than me, and there's a very real chance it's lurking just beyond the gate—around a corner, behind a tree, or waiting behind some arbitrary dramatic forest transition the moment I step through. Which reminds me. I'm done here. Step five: complete. That means it's time. I turn toward the gate. To the final zone. My expression settles into an expectant grin. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Would you like to exit Zone 4 (The Boundary) and enter Zone 5 (Deathwoods)?

Options: Yes / No ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hm. That is a very menacing name. Sounds fun. I poke Yes. Only once this time. I have learned. … For now. The fog immediately surges forward and devours everything. Rude. I can't see much beyond my own hands, but the smell wastes no time introducing itself—dry grass, old wood, ash that never actually burned, and a faint metallic tang underneath it all. Not rot. Just the scent of something that's been thoroughly used up and then abandoned out of spite.

Sound follows shortly after. Dead growth crackles under my boots. A branch taps hollowly against another somewhere ahead, like the forest is testing its mic. There are no insects. No birds. The forest isn't silent. It's just… empty of anything small. The fog peels back in slow, dramatic layers, lifting from the ground upward like it's trying to build tension. Gray moss clings to exposed roots. Dead grass mats the earth in pale, brittle sheets.

Bones lie half-buried where the ground dips, scattered casually, as if someone attempted a calcium-themed art installation and lost interest halfway through. When the trees finally come into focus—withered, twisted, but stubbornly upright—I let out a slow breath. For the first time since the Tutorial began, I have no immediate notes. That is… impressive. Death. Decay. Withering. All present and accounted for. No ambient noise beyond the dry rustle of leaves in the wind, which somehow manages to sound judgmental.

Unidentifiable bones—some small, some very much not—are strewn about like a skeleton exploded mid-stride and no one bothered to clean it up. And, of course, the obligatory first encounter. I can hear it plodding toward me in the distance, unhurried and deeply confident in its role as First Impressions Matter. I nod to myself. I hereby dub this region of the forest: Not Bad. Which, frankly, is extremely high praise coming from me. Well done, Tutorial. Your terrain generation has earned my approval. For now.

I take a step forward, fully intending to greet my Deathwood tutorial encounter with appropriate speed and violence— —and immediately feel a faint wave of vertigo roll through me. I frown. Something tugs at my Astral energy. Not hard. Not successfully. Just… trying. Cute. I pull up my status without breaking stride. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Health: 999 / 1000 Stamina: 5050 / 5050 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ah. I see. So Death Corruption is just a very dramatic way of saying permanent attrition damage.

My Star-aspected Stamina, being stubborn and full of itself, refuses to budge in the face of something as pedestrian as "death." My health, unfortunately, is not nearly as arrogant. I'd wager mana gets chewed through the same way. Not that I can test that. Tragic. Still, that's another edge over the dragon—assuming he doesn't also have some bizarre, exclusive nonsense trait like I do. The health drain is slow. Glacial, even.

Courtesy of my frankly ridiculous Starborn regeneration, I could probably wander around here for hours before needing to touch a potion. Which means the real crime here isn't danger. It's that the zone is forcing me to either spend resources or rest frequently. Unacceptable. I was saving those potions for no reason other than watching their numbers go up. That's their purpose. That said… the sensation itself is deeply irritating. It's like something is constantly tugging at my Stamina.

Not enough to matter—just enough to notice. An itch I can't scratch. Which is to say: extremely annoying. Therefore. Distraction time. My posture lowers and I launch forward, cutting through the forest in a clean burst of speed. Trees and bushes slide past as I weave effortlessly between them, momentum building as the unfortunate undead ahead shambles into my gravity sense. Tall. Dense. Interesting. I clear the final tree with a completely unnecessary spin—purely for morale—and land facing my target.

A metal visor stares back at me. I blink. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Death-Sworn Knight (Level 36 | Tier 1) Species: Undead Aspect: Grave An armored undead warrior bound to an unbroken oath. Advances steadily and relentlessly, wielding heavy weapons with practiced precision and showing no signs of hesitation or retreat. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Another highly concerning-sounding Aspect. Lovely.

My adversary stands nearly seven feet tall, dragging a greatsword behind it like an executioner late to an appointment. Its armor covers almost every inch of its frame—sleek gray metal layered with care—only thinning at the joints. A genuinely tragic design choice. Especially considering I just acquired a passive that specializes in exploiting exactly that. Naturally, I decide this is the perfect opportunity for field testing.

I temporarily seal off every other skill—except gravity manipulation, because I have standards—and rush in, letting Blazing Star Dance carry me forward as I begin the inevitable process of converting this thing into experience, points, and assorted metal scraps. The stat gap alone makes this laughably one-sided. Combine that with the undead's ongoing refusal to invest in Dexterity at all, and I have myself a very cooperative testing dummy. So I take my time. Deliberately.

It takes a few minutes to end the fight, mostly because I want data. And the data is excellent. Celestial Momentum is absurd. Each successful hit stacks roughly a two percent increase to attack speed, turn control, and stability. Per hit. Capping out at around fifty percent. Completely unreasonable. The stacks decay quickly—nearly half of them vanish the moment I'm forced to switch into Guiding Star Dance after an overcorrection—which firmly classifies it as a pure offense tool. High risk. High reward.

Severing Arc, meanwhile, proves harder to test. Mostly because my very first swing removes the armored zombie's forearm immediately. And the second removes its head. Further testing will require something significantly more durable. My tail curls with peak smugness.