This FF depicts scenes of violence and some cursing .

'' speech ''

[ thoughts ]

* sounds *

* * *

You have leveled up

You have leveled up

You have leveled up

.............

Sword Mastery has reached level 10 and has changed to Intermediate Sword Mastery.Damage with the sword increased by 50%

Intermediate Sword Mastery increases damage by 15% every time the skill goes up

Mana cost of attack skill are reduced by half.

Stat points have increased by 2

Several notifications of level ups appear in front of me, however I dismiss them all and check the skill rank upgrade notification. Who would have thought that you can gain so much from rank upgrading a single skill. The mana cost reduction is the best gain at this point, just from that I can use my Cry Strike twice as much as before. Additionally there was the permanent stat increase. Gaining additional stats is one of the most important things in this game since they give you an important advantage over other players who only gain stats by leveling up. It helps with hunting monsters too.

While I am lost in my thoughts over the benefits of skill rank upgrades and additional stats, the scenery starts to slowly change and not long after I am in the same place I previously met Calethas. Once again I can only see his back, he has a different appearance from before though. This one looked cool too, but before I could pay any serious attention over his attire he started speaking to me.

(Calethas)'' Well I got to say this was not the result I expected ''

(Curunir)'' Are you disappointed? ''

(Calethas)'' Yes and No! No, because you actually succeeded in your first try. Yes, because the quest was supposed to fail. Well in a way the quest can't fail, after all whether or not your fight against the boss was won or lost you would appear here and get the class.''

(Curunir)'' I don't get it. Why was the quest supposed to fail? Shouldn't the whole point be for me to succeed your quest and prove my worth for gaining the class?''

(Calethas)'' You would get the class no matter what! it's the legacy of our whole race after all. You are the only one who can shoulder this fate. If you weren't ready, we would make you and the point of the quest was to show you that you are not ready. The only reason you could reach that final room was because you had several advantages like buffs, healthy food, tools for maintenance and good equipment to start with. All of these were provided however to you by Caleb. Was it not for him and all the skills he taught you, you would have died on the first floor. ''

(Curunir)" Then, why did you give me time to prepare?''

(Calethas)'' To show you that even with that you were not strong enough. Furthermore it's not like every time you have to oppose someone stronger, you will have time to prepare and even if you got the time, you won't have the means. You have to become much stronger and you have to gain a lot more of knowledge so you are always ready at a second's notice. All of these aside, you showed incredible creativity and beat the boss with your mind. You also got an interesting skill. Το be able to use your head in battle is as much important as what I was trying to teach you by failing. This was the next thing I was going to teach you but it seems you already got that part, so no complains. I just hope you will not relax and get a lazy attitude and expect to solve everything with your mind.''

(Curunir)'' I understand what you are trying to say, there is no reason for worries though. I too wasn't satisfied with myself. I am going to step up a notch my training when I get back and learn more things from Caleb.''

(Calethas)'' That's reassuring, you will have to keep such an attitude in the future. Your path is so much longer and harder than anyone's else.''

(Curunir)'' It will also be more rewarding, right?''

(Calethas)'' Indeed. Now, let's not waste any more time, for completing my quest I reward you with my class. Make sure to not bring shame to it or our race.''

*Ding*

You have completed the Candidate's Test quest!

Your class changed to Legendary Slayer

Your level is reduced to level 1. All stats gained from level ups are lost

Your level is locked until you meet the necessary requirements

You have learned Slayer Mastery

You have learned Coming of Age Ritual

You have learned Slayer's Eyes

You have learned Blood Gathering

You have learned Bloodbath

You have learned Blood Field

You have learned Slayer's Blade

Optional Hematophagia has been upgraded

Multitalented has reached level 7

Multitalented has reached level 8

You have recieved the Title *Peacekeeper*

You have recieved the item *Soul Pendant*

You have recieved the item *Caletha's Training Sword*

After I saw the first few notifications I was left speechless and my jaw was probably hanging. I recieved a Slayer Class, probably the dream of every fighting class player. However once I saw the color of the Class I froze. It was a white color Class, which means it was an F Rank Class. Furthermore it had a huge downside of locking my level, after of course reducing it back to level 1.

In the research I did before I started playing RoyalRoad I got information about the ranking system of classes, weapons and skills. When it comes to classes their rank goes from lowest to highest like this: F / E / D / C / B / A / S /SS . The same ranking system exist for skills with the difference that any skill below B rank appear in white color like F rank skills. Any skill between F and C rank can reach at best Advanced 10. With some very difficult quests you can unlock a greater version of the skill and reach Master 10. The skills from Rank B to Rank SS however can reach GrandMaster 10 which is the highest level of skill without any necessery quests. After all it is really hard to get them.

There were a lot of high level players mentioned with A and S level skills, but only a handfull with SS and only one with two SS skills. The most surprising thing was when I check how many of them had reached GrandMaster 10. The result was... none. In Fact the highest among them was Master 9. High rank skills are very difficult to level up because they need a lot of mana to use, which is usually more than half of the player's mana or special requirments for their usage, like very big cooldown or special ingredient for each use or even sucrifice an item.

Another reason for the slow leveling of skills, is that players get a lot of skills as they level up and it's bad for a player to focus only on two or three skills while he/she neglects the rest.

Lastly, when it comes to weapons the ranks are a little different. They start from lowest to highest like this: Common / Uncommon / Superior / Rare / Unique / Epic / Artifact / Legendary . Most weapons you see nowdays are from Unique to Artifact. After 40 years in game time, everyone got good gear from the high level bosses and skilled blacksmiths. As for the Legendary equipment.... not many choose to have in their possessions such an item. Once someone get something like that in their hands they become targets of PKers or enemy guild players. Once you are in war with a guild, their members can kill each other without pk penalty and the losers usually drop an item or two from their inventory.

Standing there frozen for more than a minute, Calethas got little irritated.

[Calethas] '' Hey boy, aren't you gonna thank me for my amazing gifts? I even gave you a couple of really usefull items. ''

[Curunir] '' Items? You gave items? I am sorry I just froze after I saw you gave me an F Rank Class and my level got reduced and locked at 1. ''

[Calethas] '' Seriously? You didn't check the rest, like your amazing skills? C'mon kid do you think that someone like me would have 'JUST' and F rank class? ''

[Curunir] '' But the restric-''

[Calethas] '' Listen! I know what you probably are thinking but let me say beforehand that the level lock is just temporary and as for your class, it's an evolving one. I would like to explain more but your time is up. You will be soon back in the dungeon. Make sure before you leave from there to check all your new skills and class. Remember! Your path is harder but as you mentioned so much more rewarding too! I hope we can meet again in the future if the circumstances allow it.

Before I could even complain the scenery started to change once again and in mere seconds I was back in the dungeon next to the dead Glowing King.

I took deep breaths to clam myself and after that I decided to check my new skills and class as Calthas advised me.

[Curunir] '' Check new Skills ''

* Ding *

Slayer Mastery

This skill grows when you slay a new type of opponent. The more efficiently you can slay the opponent the faster the skill grows. Monsters you can slay perfectly do 20% less damage on you

+10 Reputation with Slayer Community

Coming of Age Ritual: (Lvl. 1: 00% )

When the gauge of this skill reaches 100% the Coming of Age Ritual is going to start. The gauge can fill itself up faster if certain requirements are met.

Gauge - 1% full

Slayer's Eyes: (Lvl. 1: 00%)

When you activate the skill your Eyes change to a deep red-black color which make others fear you by unleashing your Fighting Spirit and Fear stats. Weak enemies might die out of fright or get considerable damage.

Fighting Spirit +1%

Fear +1%

Blood Gathering: (Lvl. 1: 00%)

You are able to gather the blood of your victims regardless of its special characteristics.

(1 vial per dead opponent)

Cost: 150 Mana per use

Bloodbath: (Lvl. 1: 00%)

The skill activates If during the battle you get the blood of your enemies on youself.

+10 Fighting Spirit

+10 Fear

Blood Field: (Lvl. 1: 00%)

You are able to control the blood in the area around you. You can make opponent's wound bleed x2 more. Blood Field descrease the amount of heal-50% from skills or potions, You can make the blood of your enemies boil resulting in an unexplainable rage, their skills have 10% chance of failing and their regeneration becomes 0 as long as they are inside the area of the Blood Field. Enemies inside the Blood field have the chance to generate or increase the Hemophobia stat.

Radius: 5 meters

Cost: Sustained – 250 mana per second.

Slayer's Blade: (Lvl. 1: 00%)

Calethas's visionary weapon skill, carried on by those destined to slay the invisible or intangible. Ignores enemy defence. Defends against magic of lower mastery than Slayer's Blade. When spells are absorbed, the caster only incurs 50% of original mana cost.

Cost: Sustained – 250 mana per second.

Optional Hematophagia: (Lvl. 5: 73%)

Hematophagia is a practice of certain creatures of feeding on blood. Your satiation factor, health and stamina rise when you drink blood. Higher level of the skill has faster and stronger effects. Gathered Blood of Mini-bosses/Bosses/Hidden-bosses/World-bosses/Gods gives you permanent stats. Higher level Hematophagia gives higher stats. Higher quality of Blood make the skill rise faster.

Begginer-stats

Intermediate-stats + exp on skills

Advanced-stats + exp on skills + element affinity

Master-stats + exp on skills+element affinity + 1 skill

????

????

????

The skills were..... Cheats. The active ones had really high mana cost and if it weren't for his newly upgraded sword mastery the cost would be double the amount. There were no active damage skills as he hoped but all the effects from the skills he got were awesome, as expected really from B, A and S rank skills. He guessed the ritual skill was what he needed to unlock his level up and possibly evolve his class.

After checking all of them he had a lot of questions, like what is the Slayer Community or what was that Hemophobia stat. He also wondered what was the difference of the Blood Gathering skill with how he gathered the scorpion blood untill now. He wouldn't be wondering for long however as he took an emty vial out and used the skill.

[Curunir]'' Blood Gathering ''

Like magic the blood from the Glowing King started to float and move inside the vial. Only five second later the vial was full. That saved a lot of time since he had to practicly put the vial close to a wound a wait for the dropping blood to full the vial. Also normaly he couldn't collect blood that was dropped on the floor. But like that he had finished the job in only five seconds and as he understood when the skill reached higher levels he could gather more than one vial. Not that he would need it really since his vials were enchanted and could fill 5l of blood.

After checking the blood in the vial for a while he decided to check another skill of his. This time he didn't have to active any skill since Optional Hematophagia was a passive skill. He put the vial close to his lips and took a big sip. The taste was a little different from the previous scorpion's blood. It had a taste of light red wine that could get you addictive. Lost in the taste the blood left in his mouth he almost forgot about the results. He dismissed the notification about his full stamina and checked the second one.

You have recieved Glowing King's partial power

Glowing King:+ 4str +2agi +5endur +2FS +4vit +1hp/10s +1sta/10s

As the skill said he got bonus stats, even if they were partial, probably because of his low level skill. The blood of the high level boss however gave him enough experience and his skill leveled up to 6.

With all his skills checked it was time to assess the damage in his stats. He didn't lose any permanent stats and that was something that reassured him he didn't waste any of his time. Levels was something he could get back, but the permanent hard gained stats was something he wouldn't forgive if someone was to take them from him.

[Curunir]'' Open Status Window ''

Status WindowNameCurunιr Estelron of ThargelionAlignmentChaotic NautralProfessionLegendary SlayerLevel1TitlePeacekeeperFame1690Infamy0Health1820Mana3170Strength81+10Agility89+10Wisdom132Intelligence134Vitality96Endurance94Luck12Leadership3Concentration132Art46Fighting spirit26Fear12Sustenance48Charm14Attack65-69Defence20Magic Resistance6%Dark62%Holy-50%Affinities

Blood: 10Racial Traits:

+50% resistance to Dark attacks/debuffs

-50% resistance to Holy attacks/buffs/debuffs

5% Magic Resistance

You can see in the dark slightly better than Humans

+10% stats at night or inside dungeons

NPCs are suspicious of you or even dislike you, but they won't atk you on sight

All Churches and Elf subclasses are hostile with you

If your Alignment changes to Chaotic Evil you will be considered a monster

Class Traits:

STR+10/AGI+10

+5% stats at night or inside dungeons

You can learn F rank magic skills

Blood affinity +10

You can use all types of weapons effectively

Class skills and Masteries can reach Heroic Rank

You can give quests to NPCs or Players

Players can kill you without gaining infamy or killer's mark

You can kill Players without gaining infamy or killer's mark

You can befriend monsters

Curunir was nothing but impressed with his stats. Sure they were quite lower than before, but his stats right now were all hard gained stats along with some permanent stat gains from food, skills, etc. Thinking back how weak he was at level 1 it changed his mood for the better. These stats were his advantage over the players that chose to only level up as fast as possible, neglecting any kind of training.

He was stuck at level 1 so the only thing he could do right now was to go back to Caleb and ask for some advice on how he should proceed with his training from now on. He put everything in his inventory and moved at the top of the teleportation circle. The space distorted and the next moment he was standing outside of the Dungeon Generator. He wanted to go and see Caleb and tell him everything that happened, but he thought it would be for the best if he took some rest in the real world along with a hot bath and a nice meal. Nothing would change untill he was back he thought.

Chapter11Chapter 13