I’m Lavei Von Dragonr, heir to the prestigious Dragonr family and the honorable knight captain of Asiavell’s 7thdefense battalion.

A few days ago, His Majesty, the king, summoned me to a private meeting. Recently, we have discovered a massive activity within the corrupted lands that bordered our kingdom. A war against the creatures of corruption looming on the horizon. He had been summoning the captains of the battalions for private discussions these few days.

Imagine my surprise when the first thing his majesty asked me to do was to take an oath in the name of my knighthood. His stoney face and stiff body language made me wonder what important matter he wanted to discuss.

After listening to his majesty’s plans, I was struck speechless. I never expected the wise king to take such a step.

To be honest, I was bit skeptical about his idea of using an ancient summoning spell to gather warriors from other planes of existence. There’s a reason why that spell was listed in the Book of Forbidden Spells.

I tried to dissuade him from taking such a risk. But he stayed firm in his decision. I could only nod and accept. And so, I was tasked to welcome the summoned ‘heroes’ and train them until they were ready.

Later that day, the royal mages completed the spell, and we succeeded in summoning twenty individuals. They dressed weirdly, looked weak, and were severely undisciplined. They even started shouting in my face.

I showed them a glimpse of my strength. From my experience, might is always the fastest way to solve problems.

I let loose some of my Chi, the bread and butter of knights and warriors. Chi force surged, bringing about a crushing pressure on everyone that hadn’t reached their first awakening. And since my Chi was thunder attributed, all the lightning elements around were gathered into a pillar behind me. Well, it was unintentional. Though, it brought a better effect than intended.

But I was not expecting to find a gem. If someone who hasn’t even killed their first monster could stand up to my Chi pressure isn't a gem, then I don’t know what is. The icing to the cake, he even awakened the rare skill, Tenacious.

He might just be the one his majesty was searching.

As for the rest, well, let’s see what fate has in store for them.

XXX

Twenty seconds felt like twenty years. Although I recovered from fear pretty fast, my body wouldn’t budge. Not even a single muscle would move. The so-called status effect seemingly froze my body in place.

My heartbeat sped up. I was frozen right in the middle of the hall between three tunnels. It was a dangerous place to be in as those goblins might come out from either side. Fear gripped my soul.

My willpower focused on just one task—to move. I tried curling my fingers into a fist, but they didn’t even twitch. Everything below my neck was paralyzed, seemingly frozen in time. It was a scary feeling!

I didn’t give up. I couldn’t.

Move! Move dammit! I chanted like a mantra. Even if it's just a little, move!!

Plap! Plap!

My heart nearly leaped out of my throat when a series of clip-clopping sounds rapidly got closer. I felt like sweating, but Imps don’t have sweat glands. Dread was prevalent among all the emotions I was feeling.

Move!!

I screamed internally. To myself. To my body.

Suddenly, I felt a liberating feeling washing over me. Following that, I stumbled over to a side because I was trying to move my legs. After regaining my mobility, I rushed towards the embrace of the darkness the tunnels offered me.

I even ignored the blue UI hovering in the corner of my eyes. There seemed to be something important written on it.

Shade Spawn activated once I entered the darkness. A cool feeling washed over me and soothed both my body and mind. It was like a taking nice soak in the pool on a hot summer day.

I didn’t stop to enjoy the feeling. Without looking back, I ran into the deepest part of the darkness as fast as my stubby legs could carry me. Infrared Vision activated on its own and showed a dimly lit path ahead. Without a heat source, it couldn’t do much, and the walls of this dungeon were pretty cold.

Despite the darkness, I easily found my home. Hard to miss such a crudely made hole in the wall. After entering the cave, I leaned against the wall and breathed in large gulps of air. My stamina had bottomed out during the ad rush. I was only running on fumes towards the end.

Once inside the safety of my home, I had the leeway to invest my attention into other things. Such as the blue window that was persistently following me around.

You’ve resisted the status effect of a life form far surpassing you.

You obtained a talent: Reinforced Will.

Titel Perk: Learned [Cleanse]

[Cleanse Lv1]

Active effect:-

Removes all debuffs and status effects upon activation on oneself or touching others.

Passive Effect:-

Unlocks [Willpower] attribute.

Cost: The skill doesn’t cost any resources, but requires a charging time of five minutes.

I once heard a saying; only rewards await in the aftermath of a disaster. What happened to me moments ago can only be described with one word—fatal. If I was a second late in regaining my mobility those goblins might’ve eaten me alive.

And the source of all the above was the status effect caused by a roar from an orc.

It was no surprise that I’d be gifted with a skill to resist the control effects. Though, I was not clear about the Willpower attribute. There was no given explanation about it by the system.

Kikkkk!!

Roar!!!

Growls and grunts were audible from afar. The battle between those goblins and the orc must be going intense. I wanted to go there and watch this battle between two opposing forces.

Orcs were quite strong, comparable to at least a level 20 knight, according to Lavei. They especially shined when up against a horde. The Asiavell knight mentioned that they have a unique talent that continuously replenishes their stamina by drawing out their opponent's blood.

It’ll take no less than a squadron of knights focused on both defense and offense to take one down. If it’s a one-on-one, level 30+ warriors are needed to kill them. They were that strong.

I wanted to see such a monster in action.

I got a new skill. I’ll be fine. Thinking to myself, I crawled out of the hole. Sticking close to the wall, I returned to the junction where I assumed the battle was going on.

The noises became louder by the second, reminding me that I was getting close. I picked up the pace a little.

At that time, suddenly, Infrared Vision picked up red humanoid outlines stacked in a heap. A few bodies laid haphazardly around; they emitted a dim red glow. Either they were already dead or were very close to death.

Roar!!!

You heard the “Orc Chief’s Bellow”

All Stats -100%

My body froze again. Twice I had been inflicted with the same thing. And I had not yet seen the cause of this, the so-called orc chief.

Luckily, I got just the skill to get out of this sticky situation. With my eyes closed, I searched for something warm inside me. The way to activate it was already there in my head. Soon, I found a refreshing feeling lingering around my chest area.

You have used [Cleansing]

Error!

Failed to remove the debuffs.

Reason: Power gap.

This system was unreliable. Fuck!