Before this moment, I didn’t pay any mind to the matter but now that the time of my imprisonment was quickly approaching… it sure is an unpleasant feeling. I got dragged out of the wagon forcefully and made to walk inside the building. On the outside and first floor of the shop, it looked like a plain old store managed by an old couple. But once you actually took the winding stairs down hidden in the back, it starts resembling a dungeon more and more.

I could feel the temperature dropping, and the brick walls slowly changed to mossy stone ones. Torches on the walls hanged at intervals lit up the stairwell leading down, allowing me to see what was lying up ahead. After having arrived at the area under the shop, a rotten smell hit my nose, but the knights looked like they were fine. They must frequent this place to drop off other criminals and the such.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” I asked the captain, who was standing in front talking to someone. After finishing his talk with an old man who looked like the guard of the prison, the captain told me exactly what was going to happen to me.

“You’ll be chained in the Laboratory Cell, and some experiments will possibly be performed on you. We need some data, and criminals like you are a perfect fit to be our test subjects,” answered the captain.

His sentence finished and I didn’t even want to correct him when he labeled me as a criminal. With a strong grip, he brought me inside the cell and lay me down on top of a metal lab bench. I was chained down, but I didn’t struggle at all. It was futile in the end, my only hope at escape would be to revive at the correct time and place upon my death. is probably pointless as well, they’d just drag me out before I could dig deep enough. So far, I hadn’t been able to find a way to control the timing of my revival, but I’ll give it a shot nevertheless.

As time passed, the knights eventually emptied out and I was left alone on a cold, metal bench. I thought I was alone though, but I spotted a woman from the corner of my eye gathering some tools. She wore a white apron, and had on white gloves. Unexpectedly, it seems like I have found the person that would be running tests on me. She put a bunch of sharp tools on a tray and started talking to me.

“Hello there, I’m about to perform some painful experiments on you, so please don’t resent me for this. It’s all for the sake of collecting information that’ll help with development for the future of the Northern Kingdom,” she said while looking at a piece of paper. “Well, let’s get started!”

She grabbed what looked like an incisor knife and started cutting open my body. Though my other emotions had dulled, pain was not one of them. The pain stabbed through my body and I started convulsing like a madman, but the chains held me in place. I could faintly see my blood splattered everywhere as I slowly lost consciousness from the pain overwhelming my senses.

***

Once I woke up, I was still strapped to that bench with a light hovering over me. I wasn’t in much pain as before, but my body still ached. I couldn’t see the woman in a white apron anywhere, so I decided to try to stretch a little to relax my body. With a lot of effort, I tried to control my arms and legs, but they wouldn’t respond. That was when I decided to look at my limbs…

...and there was nothing there.

There were four lumps that met my view, while I was knocked out, my arms and legs had been amputated. At this point, I started freaking out. Who wouldn’t? Even if your emotions were dulled, you’d still freak out at having lost some of your most important body parts. There was only one option for me to take, wait until I died from the experiments. Then, I’d regain my unharmed body and escape from here. It might be an agonizing process, but what else was I supposed to do. Little did I know, that wasn’t going to happen.

When I had finally died from around the 5th or 6th experiment, the woman didn’t leave the cell at all. I could only hope that she and the guards guarding the dungeon weren’t here when I revived. It’d be best if they threw my corpse in the garbage, located outside of this structure. Those were my thoughts as my consciousness floated in that dark space, waiting to be revived. I think this was my 4th death now? Would I receive another gift from the system or would everything remain the same?

My wishes weren’t granted because the revival didn’t take long, and none of those familiar notifications appeared in front of me. I was transferred back into my intact body, but the situation was very unfortunate for me. I was still chained onto that bench, and an audible gasp came from the woman who I found out was named Jane. She had noticed the change in my body and immediately touched my regenerated arms and legs, noticeably shocked.

“H-how! How did you come back from the dead! I swear you stopped breathing a few seconds ago, and even your legs and arms are regenerated!?!” shouted Jane in disbelief.

I remained silent to not give out any clues. Things have gotten messy, my chances of escape were close to none and there was the likelihood of more experiments being performed on me. Jane had experienced this phenomenon once, so she would be expecting it the next time I died from one of her experiments. If she never lets me go, I’ll never be able to live my life however I want. I won’t be able to control anyone from behind the scenes if I get stuck in this cell forever!

Jane grabbed her tools again and a piece of paper. You could guess what was about to happen to me. Damn experiments! I struggled to break free from the chains, and the process started repeating again. They would repeat again and again forever unless I managed to break free, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

***

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve died so far. I’m in a countless trance, losing my consciousness every few minutes. I’m not sure but a few days, a few weeks or even a few months might’ve passed by. I couldn’t think because of the constant pain. It seemed like an eternity until I got a break. But that was false hope, I can’t believe I got my hopes up. A whole team of people were working on my body now, it was… hell.

[Requirement: has been met. One skill has been randomly selected from the target and copied.]

[Requirement: has been met. One skill has been randomly selected from the target and copied.]

…

…

[Requirement: has been met. One skill has been randomly selected from the target and copied.]

[ 100/100 requirement has been met. Commencing Upgrade of the System…]

I barely managed to look at the messages because I was so tired from dying over and over. This time, I would come back with a new system, so I wonder if I’ll be able to escape? I didn’t want to get my hopes up to just be disappointed again. After waiting in the space of nothingness for some time, I finally regained my body and appeared back on that metal lab bench, with people wearing white aprons waiting for me. I heard gasps of exclamation, but I’ve heard enough of them already. This cell was already crowded to the brim, I’ve wondered how they could still perform experiments with such little room.

Before they could move closer though, time froze. How I knew you might ask? The people that were rushing to the equipment were frozen, not moving an inch. The usual flickering light above me had stopped flickering as well. Then, a notification appeared in front of me.

[Due to dying 100 times and obtaining 100 skills, you have the chance to be granted one wish. State your wish. Your original skills will be sacrificed in order for your wish to be fulfilled.]

I didn’t even think twice. My wish had come true and I had a chance to get out of here. Plus, I didn’t even care about skills that I got from these lowly scientists.

“I wish to obtain enough power so that I could break out of here and destroy the kingdom if I desired so,” I declared.

[Wish has been granted. Reorganizing Stat Page…]

{Ryan’s Stat Page}

10000

[Active Skills]

Stealth (MAX)

[Passive Skills]

Absolute Defense (MAX) Absolute Strength (MAX) Mastery of Weapons (MAX) Manipulation of Chaos Energy (MAX) Persuasion (MAX) Resistance (MAX) MP Recovery (MAX)

Demon Synchronization (0%)

My stat page was overflowing with maxed out skills. There were so many that I lost count, but I knew one thing. A huge amount of energy had just been infused into my body, due to the fact that my MP had went from 15 to 10000. A huge jump that would make anyone’s eyes jump out of their sockets. Furthermore, I became able to sense this different type of dark energy scattered in the air. That must be the chaos energy, I can probably sense it since I have complete mastery over it. Every skill except stealth was passive, which was a little disappointing but the potential of my passive skills was amazing. I could basically do anything that an active skill could accomplish with them, be it a chaos ball or a heated debate.

I was pretty shocked, but I felt more joy than surprise. I could finally escape! The active skills consumed 25 MP per use and the passive skills consumed 1 MP per minute, but that was countered by my MP Recovery skill which recovers 7 MP per minute. It can’t be coincidental right? Also, the demon synchronization concerned me. It could be good or bad for me, but I wouldn’t know until it reached 100%. That’s why I put it to the side of my head.

Suddenly, time resumed and the scientists continued what they were doing. I didn’t want to kill them all and gather even more attention on myself than I need to. I’ll escape quietly and stealthily. I activated stealth, because it probably did what I thought it did, conceal me in some way.

[25 MP used. 9975 MP Remaining.]

If my wish was granted, these skills are powerful enough to rival a kingdom. Immediately, I easily broke free of my restraints, as if I was snapping a stick, and exited the cell without the scientists noticing that my presence had disappeared. Outside, I looked around but saw no guards or anyone familiar. Before I could lower my guard though, I needed to blend in with the surroundings. My clothes had made me stand out before, so getting a new set of clothes is my first priority. Hmm, where should I go?

I looked around for a clothings shop, and I finally spotted one. I ended up trading in my old clothes and got a similar outfit to what the villagers from Sheldor had worn. For some reason when I tried it on, it turned all black. It wasn’t burnt or charred, the colour just shifted to a pitch black colour. Finally, after fiddling around for a bit I figured out the reason for the change in colour. I concentrated on the elevated levels of chaos surrounding me like an aura, and forced them to disappear. It was a lengthy process, but finally something clicked after experimenting with the energy for some time. Now, my clothes remained brown. When I released the energy again, my clothes got surrounded by a black haze and turned black once again. For protection against people that are able to sense energy like this, I need to keep this chaos contained at all times. Also, my vein outfit will allow me to blend in more than a black one.

Imagine releasing all of this chaos energy surrounding me at once, would people be scared or amazed? I’ll have to wait to find out. Furthermore, I can pursue my altered goal with even more determination now. Before, I had only wanted to conquer this kingdom from behind the scenes, so all the necessities and my wants could be fulfilled. But now because the cruel knights of the North had arrested me unfairly and had subjected me to harsh treatment, I have decided to give the upper echelon a taste of their own treatment. With my wish fulfilled by the system, I have enough power to challenge whoever I want. With a thirsty desire for revenge that came to be, even though my emotions had gradually faded away over the course of a hundred deaths—I had a new goal. It was about time the royal family is dethroned...