I read the notification again and again, as if I was dreaming. Had I really done it? Was I free? Free from the endless torment... I remembered the years I had spent in the vast emptiness... The sacrifices and the... the... the what? What did I do again? I didn’t remember... Rather, it felt like I had something at the tip of my tongue, but...

As my memories seemed to vanish from my mind, so too did the anguish, the guilt I felt... What did I feel guilty for again? Why was I forgetting the trial? Hadn’t my efforts been successful? Hadn’t I lived a life of torturous boredom for decades? Wait a minute... had I? I couldn’t remember...

It seemed the system was merciful enough to spare me from the memory of my trial. Either that, or it had something else in mind. How strange. For some reason, I remembered my first trial perfectly, even though more than a decade passed in that illusion. Yet, my memories of this trial were as fleeting as a summer shower.

At the very least, I had succeeded. I wasn’t too keen on confronting my actions within the trial anyway... Better for them to disappear altogether.

Using that thought to console myself, I retreated into my mental palace, where it looked like a typhoon had blown over. All of my trees had been uprooted, forget about my other plants. Only the little shack in the centre seemed to have held on. Thankfully, it looked like the winds had come and gone. Now was the time to heal. I closed my eyes.

About an hour later, and with my mental palace starting to recover, I decided to rejoin the real world. For a moment, I was scared that when I opened my eyes, I would find myself in the vast emptiness of my trial. Thankfully, I opened my eyes to the damp dungeon instead.

Again, I tried to remember the specifics of the trial, but when I tried to recall the event, only a white image appeared in my head. Nothing.

Secretly relieved, I decided to focus on my new class, which took precedent in this moment.

[Hollow essence knight]

You have become a conduit for mana. All mana that flows through you becomes chaotic, while the world around you twists in response to your essence. You are still in a juvenile state, but as a [Hollow essence knight], you will one day turn into an existence that none can deny.

Your signature skill is [Hollow essence return].

Gain 8 stat points in each physical stat, 4 stat points in each mental stat and 10 free stat points per level.

[Hollow essence return](0%)

Tier 4 skill.

The closer you are to death, the stronger your essence becomes.

In rare situations, your essence can gain skill-proficiency through this skill.

Increase skill proficiency through repeated use.

[Hollow manifestation](0%)

Tier 3 skill.

Manifest a hollow representation of your essence.

[Blackened essence] manifests in the form of a dome with the skill holder at the centre. Everyone inside of the dome, save the skill holder, will be covered in impenetrable darkness.

The skill holder's aura gains a large increase in range and power while [Hollow manifestation] is active.

Increase skill proficiency through repeated use and use in combat.

[Essence lifespan](0%)

Tier 3 skill.

Gain 100 years of life for each skill tier your essence possesses.

Skill proficiency increases along with [Blackened essence].

I had to admit, reading these new skill descriptions, I felt a little underwhelmed.

One active skill and two passives, of which only one seemed useful in combat. Compared to the jump from tier 1 to tier 2, it felt less impactful. Yet, the systems description of my new class wasn’t shy with praise. It acted like this new class was a tier 6 class or something.

With this new tier, the focus seemed to have shifted from overloaded mana to my essence skill. Uncle Robart had told me essence skills were a fundamental part of a high-tier classer’s strength, so getting a head-start didn’t seem like a bad idea. Furthermore, I wasn’t short on powerful offensive skills at this point.

Still, the shift from being a simple death knight to being something as dramatic as a [Hollow essence knight] seemed a little... farfetched.

Did the system seek to reward me for my early essence skill, or was the hollow part a reference to my tier 3 trial?

Perhaps the fact that I constantly used overloaded mana led to the ‘conduit’ part. That, in turn, might have been the only connection the system needed to give me this seemingly rare class.

In the end, it didn’t matter. [Hollow essence knight] might be an intimidating name, but it wasn’t quite as morbid as my previous death knight classes. From now on, I could announce my class to strangers if I wanted to, without needing to fear a witch hunt.

Even more importantly, the stat points I gained per level had doubled again. On top of that, my mental stats would now also receive a boost per level, which I knew signified the difference in rarity between the death knight classes and this new path I had set upon.

I would need those extra stats if I wanted to reach the next milestones anyway, since my physical stats wouldn’t grow enough on their own. The tier 4 milestone was at 1200 stat points, while my physical stats were set to reach 1100 by the time I reached level 100. With these mental stat increases, I could spend free stat points on my physical stats for a while. That’s without mentioning the benefits a higher wisdom stat would bring.

Then, on to my new skills that this class brought with it. Strangely, [Hollow essence return] was the signature skill, and it had the highest tier, despite not being as useful as [Hollow manifestation], at first glance.

Yet, I could kind of see why. [Hollow essence return] was some kind of rare berserk skill that powered up my essence when I was near death. Now, even getting to that point would be difficult, but if I truly needed it, the skill would activate.

What a ‘stronger’ essence meant was another matter, however. Supposedly, essences helped with mana control, power, using multiple skills at once and so on. In other words, nearly every aspect of a classer could be powered up through an essence skill, which is why they made all the difference at later tiers, where everyone had ways to deal with parlour tricks like overloaded mana.

Hopefully, the skill’s effects would be as dramatic as its name. On second thought, its secondary effect might be the real value of the skill, though.

[Hollow essence return] could sometimes increase an essence skill’s proficiency, which was a monumentally rare occurrence otherwise. Apparently, only some random occurrences like epiphanies could help increase proficiency otherwise. With this skill, I could improve my essence much more reliably. Some tier 6 classers might kill to get a skill like this.

The second skill, [Hollow manifestation] seemed much more useful in the immediate future, though. Basically, it synergised with my essence and allowed me to set up some kind of domain to empower my aura and blind enemies. Simple, but remarkably effective, I was sure. Furthermore, as my essence and the skill itself grew, the manifestation would also evolve. Its future potential was limitless.

The final and most underwhelming skill was [Essence lifespan]. I suppose that the system gifted me the skill as a big middle finger after I used my last lifespan skill to form my essence. I suppose I should’ve seen something like this coming. Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t a bad skill by any means. An extra three hundred years right of the bat was nice and solved any immediate issues of time that I could’ve had. Unfortunately, that also meant that I lost the chance to get a better skill with my tier up. It didn’t help that the skill only tiered up when my essence itself did.

There were tier 6 classers with tier 4 essence skills, for Helios’ sake! That was how hard essence skills were to tier up! Hopefully my next constitution milestone rewarded me with a better lifespan skill, or I might just die from old age before I reached my full potential...

Then again, the skill did have one thing going for it... Essence combined with lifespan? What if, at a high tier, the skill simply tied my mortality to my essence? That would mean... immortality! Wait a minute... wouldn’t I be classified as a lich in that case? No, those guys stored their essence in a box or something... Bah! Who cared! I started off as a death knight, what’s a little immortality compared to that? It’s not like anybody had to know about this, anyway...

All that done, I decided to take a look at my finalised status screen. This would be my line-up of skills for a while, since I wasn’t looking to make any new ones in the future anyway.

Name: Arthur Titles [Dark prodigy] Class: [Hollow essence knight] LVL 1 Strength 312 Constitution 308 Dexterity 308 Intelligence 104 Wisdom 267 Affinity 600 Free stat points 10

Skills:

Passive:

[Overloading combustion core](0%), [Dark flow sight](4%), [Cascading mana-intrusive Swordsmanship](16%),

[Mental palace](N/A), [Dark Form](52%), [Crawling road](0%), [Weak mana sense](N/A), [Blackened essence(formative)](0%), [Hollow essence return](0%), [Essence lifespan](0%)

Active:

[Ghost apparation](21%), [Corrosive mark](3%), [Relentless orbs](4%), [Sword laser](1%), [Onyx chain wind](2%), [Aura step](49%), [Hollow manifestation](0%)

I smiled. So much had changed in this past year. My status now had reached tier 3, and I had long since surpassed the strength of Garret's party, who had guided me to the guild back in the day. In fact, if Doran wasn't such a monster himself, I might have even stood a chance against him. Well, not a big chance, but still...

As I got up from my lotus position, I cracked my tired bones and left the dungeon. On my way out, I asked a nearby guard how long I had been inside.

"About thirteen hours, therearound." he had said.

After thanking him for his help, I attempted to pay Andross a visit. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the night, so I was forced to abandon that course of action. Instead, I decided to sleep the night away.

As I laid on the bed in a guest room I had been assigned, I wondered how the system could make thirteen hours seem like thirteen decades. Were its illusions another world entirely? Did it control time? What was the system? A god? Why was the system? Did it at least take pleasure in the misery it cast upon those below, or were our struggles only meant to prove our worth?

These thoughts bounced around in my head, until I fell into a fitful sleep.