Marksman has reached level 5.

Your mana capacity has improved (+15).

“No new skill?” Jayce muttered ruefully between gulps of air. His hands were on his knees and he wanted nothing more than to collapse and sleep. Unfortunately, even though he wasn’t going to be ordered, he still had a job to do. Jayce stumbled through the quiet remains of the battlefield and collected the corpses that the centipede and its clones weren’t snacking on. He found another mana core and grimaced before pocketing it to give to Mize later.

After talking with Mize regularly, he had inadvertently learned about her core strategy for this trip into the dungeon. Ultimately, things had turned out as he feared. Mize’s main goal was to raise that centipede until it reached a certain turning point. As for her B and C-Rankers, Mize wanted them to reach level 10 in both their main and secondary classes before ignoring them and focusing completely on the A-Ranker.

Naturally, the mana core in his pocket would not be given to him.

“Classes give some kind of advancement every five levels. Sometimes it’s an ability, other times they just improve some part of you.”

After the battle, Mize ordered a period of rest. And that meant another round of questions and answers for the pair.

“This is actually semi-random. There’s a pool of available skills for each class, and it’s more or less impossible to get every single one. At high levels, similarly leveled classes can deviate greatly from each other.”

“Is there a way to raise your chance of getting certain skills?”

“You’re more likely to get skills that are suited to you. Whether they’re suited to your fighting style, personality or race. This is called class affinity. Some people force themselves to level up the wrong class and end up much weaker than their peers.”

Jayce grimaced again. Did he have any affinity with the Bloodrager class? The answer was obviously no.

“There’s no need to look like that,” Mize giggled. “Since you can’t change your class, you can raise your affinity by changing your mentality. If you find yourself using certain abilities without consciously activating them, that’s a sign you have good affinity with your class.”

Lacing his fingers, Jayce thought for a while. When he finished digesting what he’d just heard, he changed the subject.

“By the way—”

“Your nose is dripping.”

“Ah.” Jayce turned away and snorted. Two small masses of blood shot out of his nose.

“As someone who studied low-level Bloodrager abilities like her life depended on it, I feel a certain sense of defeat. That’s a very novel way to use Flesh Control.”

“Thanks. Although, I don’t feel like I have any affinity with this ability.”

Jayce recalled what he’d learned when he reached level 5 as a Bloodrager.

You have gained an ability: Bloodrager – Flesh Control (Lesser).

Flesh Control (Lesser)

Cost: Vital Energy

You can temporarily move and shape your body’s blood and flesh to a certain extent. This ability has a base range of five meters and will increase with your class level.

Jayce instinctively knew the limits of this ability, but he couldn’t find many ways to use it. He couldn’t sculpt his face or suddenly grow a new limb because anything controlled by this ability wouldn’t settle after he deactivated it. Moving flesh was equivalent to cutting it out of his body, but he could make it float or fly around in a short radius. Currently, its most practical use was to plug his nose during battles with those smelly flesh blobs.

“By the way, what is this crucial turning point you mentioned earlier? What level do you want that centipede to reach?”

“Beyond level 20,” Mize answered, her tone becoming serious. “I want him to open the first gate. If it works, we’ll slaughter our way through the death matches. I’m only worried Quint might try to do the same thing with his sphynx.”

“First gate…All of my equipment has an energy requirement of ‘below first gate’. What does that mean, exactly?”

Mize swiped the air and opened up a dull blue screen. She turned it towards Jayce and scooted a little closer to him on the steps where they were sitting. Jayce looked at the screen and blinked. There was white text that showed his classes and abilities.

‘Why do you have my goddamn status screen!? I’ve been trying to open one of those ever since I learned that this world had classes!’ Jayce shouted in his head.

“Normal people can open their profile window with a thought. You’re a slave,” Mize said matter-of-factly, as if she could read his mind. “Look at your levels.”

Jayce followed her extended finger and furrowed his brow.

Bloodrager: 6/20

Marksman: 5/20

“My levels are capped?”

“When you max out one of your classes, you’ll have a chance to open the first gate. Opening it will raise your max level by 20, but there are other benefits. Every gate brings a major improvement to you as a lifeform. It directly raises your life order.”

“Then, I could become something like you?” The words slipped out before Jayce thought them through.

Mize looked at him with her wide golden eyes and started laughing. She clutched her stomach and almost rolled down the stairs.

“This is a huge oversimplification, but the big picture looks like this. Life order = natural life order (times) number of gates opened.” She struggled to speak while suppressing her melodious laughter. “As we grow, we’ll only move further apart. As for exactly what kind of difference life order makes, I can’t explain it in words. You’ll understand as you gain experience in this world.”

Jayce hid his disappointment under a thoughtful expression. “How many gates are there?”

“Nine plus a tenth to become the supreme being. Even I don’t know much about the upper gates, aside from the fact that you can become a god by opening enough of them. I won’t learn about that kind of stuff while I’m still competing with my siblings.”

‘A god…Could I go home if I became a god?’

“Gods are far beyond us for now. Let’s talk about something more interesting. I haven’t told you that classes can be promoted yet. They can be combined as well. For example—”

Two towering flames erupted through the floor, cutting Mize off. Jayce and Mize’s expressions turned serious and the amicable atmosphere between them had completely vanished. As they stood up, that familiar clanging sound resumed.

“The gate’s even more unstable than yesterday,” Mize muttered.

“Yea.”

Looking at the blazing red fire that was fluttering like a flag in a storm, Jayce couldn’t help but shudder.

“What’s going on with the dungeon?”

---

At the Goldscale clan’s underground entrance to the Fragmented Ruins.

The two guards on duty stiffened as they heard someone walking down the winding stairs that led to this forbidden area. These guards, each a muscular black salamander male with sharp and imposing black armor, felt sweat accumulate on their brows when they sensed the powerful aura approaching them. They grit their teeth and readied their spears. Those pointed black tips suddenly drooped as the intruder walked out.

It was a frail old man. He had a curly mess of black hair accented with flecks of blazing crimson. His black robe was as simple as clothing could be. Aside from his shoes and a bronze cord tied around his waist, that robe was all he wore. The wrinkled old man ignored the guards and headed towards the flame gate. They didn’t move to stop him, but their expressions and off-balance postures betrayed their agitation.

“Um, lord Hessad?” a guard spoke up in a weak voice. “Do you have business in the dungeon?”

Hessad didn’t answer and he didn’t turn around. He walked right in front of the blazing flame and sat down with his legs crossed and his tail raised by his back. The guards called out to him a few more times and eventually, a scorching aura burst out of his body.

“Shut up! I can’t hear it while you’re yammering.”

The guards ran out of the room before he could finish speaking. If they hadn’t, they would have been roasted alive. While they escaped up the stairs, some of the sharp ends of their armor drooped and bent, having become flexible under the heat. A few pieces were even dripping hot slag onto the floor. As for their bodies, black salamanders were much sturdier than the symbolic armor they wore, so the guards hadn’t received any real injuries.

A few days later, another person appeared in the underground chamber. This man was half a head taller than those guards and his armor was much more complicated. Rather than being made of black metal, it was crafted from a special kind of obsidian. The light from the flame gate didn’t reflect in it. Instead, it seemed to be devoured by the scaled armor.

“What are you doing here, Hessad?” A voice like a rockslide shook the room.

“Be quiet,” Hessad grumbled. “Even if you’re the clan leader, I won’t forgive you if you prevent me from hearing that noise. All of the elders complain that you’re too reluctant to speak. I can’t believe I have to ask you of all people to shut up.”

The pair of golden eyes looming behind Hessad narrowed.

Before anything else could occur, an extremely faint and ethereal clanging noise glided through the chamber. The two figures were as silent as death while they listened to it. Ten minutes later, it stopped.

Once it did, Hessad felt the pressure behind him increase. He knew the clan leader wasn’t going to repeat his question.

“I’m here for that sound. Don’t you understand its beauty? I feel like I could happily live the rest my life right here. As long as I can hear that sound every revolution…”

The rumbling voice savaged the room once more. “I don’t understand. You hold an important position.”

“Bah, who’s worthy of having me refine for them? Your cute daughter has already gone into the dungeon.”

Silence presided for a time and Hessad settled down. The old man almost jumped when he heard the clan leader speak again.

“That noise reminds me of someone. A god who broke in here 300 years ago.”

“Something like that happened? Why haven’t I heard about it?”

“It was a disgrace. He appeared, crushed our defenses and then vanished into the gate.”

“And after that?”

“He never came out.”

“…” Hessad glanced backwards. For people at their level, it shouldn’t matter if he left the dungeon or not. The Nexus’s rules couldn’t necessarily stop them if they wanted something. “Do you know why he did it?”

“A guard mentioned something. He said he wanted some peace and quiet.”

Hessad thought for a while and said, “Then we must be kindred spirits.”

---

A gunshot sounded through the corridor as another flesh blob slumped to the ground. After a week of constant fighting in the Fragmented Ruins, the gun’s owner couldn’t begin to guess how many of these cursed monsters he’d killed.

Dressed in slick black and white servant’s clothes, an ebony cloak and an ornate bronze mask, the humanoid shooter placed two short and fat pistols in holsters by his waist.

“There’s an opening ahead. Keep moving,” A crisp, female voice exhorted, and her team followed.

Three slaves and their owner reached the open room and silently adjusted their formation. These large rooms were the greatest challenge in this world fragment. They always contained a large horde of monsters as well as a leader resting on top of the center platform. The monsters in this fragment would never grow stronger because of the Nexus’s meddling, but those high life order monsters were dangerous. Aside from the ever-present flesh blobs, the monsters in the dungeon were quite varied. A week of trudging through this dungeon had shown them that those variations were not to be underestimated. If the mana’s aspects were tweaked in just the right way, even a low-level monster could become a deadly threat. This dungeon was relatively safe because of its stability, but it challenged one to handle all kinds of opponents.

But now they were about to face a very different kind of threat.

A black line tore through the air like a speeding bullet. It was aimed perfectly to spear through the masked man’s head. He couldn’t react at all and could only stare at his approaching death as a look of shock and fear dimmed the light in his eyes.

A metallic screech echoed through the large chamber and the man opened his eyes. His team leader was standing in front of him, holding a mostly transparent shield decorated with rapidly rotating silver bands.

“A…spear?” He croaked as the jagged onyx projectile clattered to the ground. The man couldn’t believe that someone could launch a spear at such ridiculous speed.

“Shit. It’s Mize.”

Hearing his team leader swear caused the man to shudder involuntarily. This girl hadn’t been phased by any of the nightmarish monsters they’d fought. She had watched them struggle for an entire week without showing the slightest hint of concern. Even though he’d never seen her fight, he’d always felt that she was an invincible existence in this dungeon. Now, he finally learned what her voice sounded like when she was afraid.

Silent orders spread to each of her team members and they jolted into action. A three-meter-tall humanoid with stone-like skin and a vacant stare activated Bloodrage and rushed out at a plodding pace. The other B-Rank slave vanished instantly, seemingly melting into the stone brick floor. Readying his twin pistols, the masked humanoid mentally prepared himself. He didn’t budge from his master’s protection. After witnessing that spear—no, that javelin—he didn’t believe that he could survive for more than a second anywhere else. As for his master, she kept her shield in her right hand while a short black spear appeared in her left.

“Hey, Liza.” A charming voice wafted through the room. “Your luck is, uh, let’s not talk about it.”