Nilbog rested his back against the wall in the corner of the gloomy room. He could not sleep on the bed, its soft cushions a foreign oddity to his back. The ground was hard and cold but felt more comforting than the exposed bed. The door was to his right, leaving him in its blind spot. It felt safe.

After he finished talking with Lady Viss, he had made his way into one of the more far off locations on this floor, though activity still echoed around him. The streets were abuzz with combat.

He looked at his hands, the skin on his palms peeling horribly. The back of his right shoulder pulsed with pain, and a small piece of flesh on the side of his stomach was missing. It burned badly.

All in all, Nilbog was in a fine condition. His Status Effects screen did not show any injuries, meaning with the recovery of his HP his body will heal naturally. Sleep, if he's cunning enough to catch any tonight, will apply a Rest bonus, increasing his body’s base regeneration by 50%. His base regeneration was his Constitution over the duration of an hour. He had Constitution of 13, with half of that being roughly 6.5.

So in total, I would have... somewhere around 24 HP per hour, when he added all of his other regens.

The necklace Lady Viss forcibly placed on him also helped. The gem was an orange-yellow pebble in the shape of a tear connected to a thin silver chain. It rested deep within the heavy layers of his clothes, its coolness a comfort.

He Soul-Bound it when he received it. It allowed him to equip and unequip it in seconds, letting him hide it in case he gets captured.

Got to prove myself to her, I guess. That wasn’t too surprising.

Currently, he had a more imposing problem--what skills was he going to get with his 50 points.

General Stats & Parameters

Level

20

Strength

8 (8)

Species

Shapeshifter

Agility

17 (17)

Class

Sentient Killer

Endurance

14 (14)

Profession

None

Constitution

13 (13)

Age

1

Soul

12 (12)

HP

61/130(20.8/Hour)

Life Force

93/120 (1.52/Minute)

STM

21/140 (+2.24/Second)

Mana N/A

Overall STM

343/700 (+392/Day)

Danger Rank Cub

Skills

Soul Siphon (Racial Skill)

Shaper (Racial Skill)

Shifter (Racial Skill)

Sentient Killer (Class Epic)

Lethal Strike (Class Epic)

Murderous Lolie (Unique)

Seventh Sense (Monster Unique)

Seventh Sense (Monster Unique)

Skill Slot: Extra Sense

Your body has learned to react before your Soul. This skill scales with the rank of your Internal Life Force.

Murderous Lolie (Unique)

Skill Slot: Reward Modifier

The reward boost to killing enemies higher level than you is increased by 50%.

The penalty for killing enemies lower level than you are increased by 50%.

In addition, each Danger Rank you have on your opponent will decrease the rewards by 20%, while each Danger Rank your opponent has on you will increase the rewards by 20%.

The drop rate of unique, blessed, and cursed rarities is increased by 30%.

You are not allowed to opt-out of the Games while you possess this skill.

Having been proven victorious against unthinkable odds at such a young age, your future is sworn to be littered with conflict.

From the basic information Nilbog was born with, The Pre-Game was a period that lasted around half a century, give or take. There were no Phases, but people could still gain experience and attempt Dungeons. There was nothing beyond that, however. No one could buy skills, and the experience gain was significantly lower. Plus, only the basic skills were learnable, with the higher rarities needing an absurd amount of training. Only people that dedicated their lives to growing stronger could become powerful during the Pre-Game.

There were also people like Lady Ovalia, a survivor of the previous Game. The Game automatically transfers the victories to the “Abyss,” a place that Nilbog knew nothing about, but some with special skills are allowed to stay. The skills and limitations of that were something Nilbog did not know either.

What he did now, was that things were just going to keep getting harder.

You can run away from people and monsters, but you can’t run away from the Phases. Rooms would become Dungeons and entire cities would be locked, if he wasn’t straight out transferred into another dimension. There was no way about it--he had to prepare himself for battle.

The issue, of course, was always his Shapeshifter race.

Shapeshifter (A-Rank Race)

Your sole goal remains to be the death of all Sentient life, but as a monster hybrid you have gained the unique ability to participate in the Game as a Sentient rather than a monster.

All critical modifiers to your Husk’s vulnerabilities are removed. Damage to your Heart, however, will cause significant damage. You will not be able to use your Shapeshifting skills to recover damage done to it.

Siphon Soul (Racial Skill)

You are now able to Siphon Souls. Souls will reside in corpses for up to 24 hours. You may only Siphon Soul creatures with a higher rank than you if you played a major role in their death.

Siphon Soul will allow you to either store or use it to heal.

Healing Power Per Heart: 25% of your MAX HP.

Healing Uses: 4/4 (5/Hour) Shaper (Racial Skill)

You can create Husks though the use of Souls. You will gain the race’s Racial Skills, but you will not be able to change your stats. You may only medium-sized husks.

To create a Husk, you must use 5 Souls belonging to the race of the Husk you chose.

You may create specific Husk by only using its Soul, but you will not be to gain EXP or its Racial skills until you fulfill its Soul requirements.

You can store 1 Husk(s).

Stored Souls: 0/5 Shifter (Racial Skill) You may use your stored Souls of equal Rank to your current Husk to either Heal or Morph.

Healing Power Per Soul: 25% of your MAX HP.

Healing Uses: 4/4 (5/hour)

Morph: You may alter your Husk with parts of different creatures. To gain a part of a race you must use a Soul belonging to it. You may close wounds through this method, but you will not be able to regain HP.

Morph Uses: 4/4 (5/hour)

Without fixing his body, Nilbog will never get experience. To do that, he needed to Soul Siphon 4 more humans. It didn’t matter if there were corpses— It wasn’t just about killing Sentients. He could Shapeshift into a different monster, if he wanted. All he needed was to Soul Siphon five corpses and to create the “Husk.”

The issue was the Shapeshifter’s powers itself. The way he got it, and what it does and what it meant, it was everything Nilbog was taught against. Justice would be meaningless if he used such a corrupt power.

Setting that hopeless issue aside, Nilbog next opened dreadful class, as the issue went hand in hand.

A large screen opened in front of him. At the bottom was the Sentient Killer title, connected to three separate paths.

Sentient Killer (Class Epic)

Type: Sentient Killer Passive

Where others cower as Sentients wreak havoc upon the world, the Sentient Killer is a hyper-specialized monster class solely dedicated to wiping them off the map.

All Sentient Killer skills will activate as one skill in combat unless it is an activation skill, or unless stated otherwise. Any effects which target Sentient Killer will target all the skills connected to it.

Facing Sentients a Danger Rank below you will reduce Sentient Killer’s effects 25%, while facing a Sentient one Danger Rank above you will increase Sentient Killer’s effects by 25%. This bonus caps out at 50%.

Lethal Strike (Class Epic)

Type: Sentient Killer Passive/Active

You have an extra 25% Armor and Shield Penetration against Sentients. Any type of damage you directly cause will be unhealable for two seconds, after which it will have 50% healing reduction for 10 seconds.

Charge your weapons with a bright red aura for two seconds to use the skill’s active effects. For one attack, your weapons will gain triple the Armor and Shield Penetration, Crowd-Control immunity, and damage done by Lethal Strike will be unheable for a minute.

The active effects of Lethal Strike will go on a 30-minute cooldown upon usage.

Enforcer’s Beliefs

Type: Sentient Killer Passive

Gain 50% Soul Defense.

Gain 25% to all Parameters.

Gain 20% Damage Reduction.

Hunter’s Sight

Type: Sentient Killer Passive

The power of all unlocked senses is increased by 40%.

Crowd-Control effects on you are reduced by 30%.

The power of debuffs on you is decreased by 20%.

It was by no means poor; in fact, it was quite an amazing class. The buffs it offered were astronomical, with an offensive, defensive, and utility branch. Enforcer’s Belief was useful in every situation, Lethal Strike guaranteed major damage if he could connect with it, and Hunter’s Sight kept his guard up and reduced effects such as stuns, slows, blinds, roots, and whatever else tried to immobilize him. Debuffs were also weaker on him. He was like a mini-boss when fighting Sentients.

The only issue was that he wasn’t a psychopath. Going around murdering people for no good reason wasn’t something he was planning on doing. He didn’t know how Sentient’s gained their classes, but as a monster he had no choice. He had it ever since he became a Shapeshifter, and he didn’t know if he could even change it.

Should have asked Lady Viss about it. He could hardly ask anyone about this sort of thing.

He motioned over the blue reticle, opening the Shop. Other than the settings blinker, which had a cog turning, and held simple settings such as the way tables showed information and his notification preferences, the Shop was the last button open to him. After he pressed it, another screen opened. The only available option was the Skill Acquisition tab.

Four separate options were available once he pressed that.

General

Class

Life Force

Mana

Nilbog started with the easy ones. The Mana button was grayed out, and there was only a single available skill in the Life Force category.

(Uncommon) 1st Rank All Or Nothing Life Defense

Type: Soul Defense Active

Cost: 15

Add-on Cost: 5 points

Use all your Life Force to defend against Soul attacks. Each 10 Life Force will provide 1 Soul Defense. If more Life Force is required to defend against the attack than what you have, then you will die of Life Force deprivation.

(Owned) Add-on: For each Danger Rank your opponent has on you, your Soul Defense will increase by 25%.

(Unowned) Add-on: You may spend HP instead of Life Force. For each 5 HP, you will gain 1 Soul Defense.

(Unowned) Add-on: You may spend STM instead of Life Force. For each 10 STM, you will gain 1 Soul Defense.

Nilbog has never used Life Force before. Today was the first time, and it was by blind luck. Surprisingly, it came with an Add-on. Usually, he needed to buy Add-on for skills, but sometimes they come bundled depending on how the skill was unlocked. In his case, defending against someone much stronger than him caused The Game to deem him worthy.

That was generally how skills were unlocked, as far as he knew. If someone threw a single rock to kill a monster, the experience gain from that will increase the chances of the Game providing a skill that increases the power of throwing a single rock. If they killed the monster by throwing multiple rocks, then they might gain increased Speed and lower the STM cost. If they tried to infuse it with Life Force for increased durability, then an option might be to make add an explosive element to their Life Force.

That was a large reason why rankers had an undisputable advantage—their family’s decades of knowledge allowed them to train towards specific skills.

This posed another problem Nilbog. People were born with 1st Life Force. The higher their Life Force went, the higher ranked skills they could use. Nilbog having no Life Force rank meant he didn’t meet the requirements for any of them—Even if he did need All Or Nothing at some point, it might not even function correctly.

Because of that, and the fact that Sentient Killer provided more than enough Soul Defense against Sentients, he left it aside.

That only left only his Class and General skills.

Sentient Lover

Skill Slot: Sentient Killer Passive

Skill cost: 5

Reduce all parameters when fighting Sentients by 70%. In addition, whenever you use a Disguise skill, letters in neon pink will appear over your head spelling I’ll Be A Monster For You.

For your severe lack of enthusiasm in killing Sentients, consider this a gift to further improve your active efforts in failing existence.

Nilbog wasn’t even mad—this was genuinely hilarious. Apparently, the Game did not like his general policy of not murdering people and consuming their Souls with relish. Considering he did not make good use of his class, no other skills became available to him.