Sam stood silently, his chest rising and falling as the corpses of the goblins lay scattered around him.
It was hard to believe the fight was over so quickly.
A part of him was genuinely surprised, but the other half... not so much.
The [Intermediate Sword Technique] definitely made a difference.
He could feel the improvement just by the way his body moved during the fight.
If he had gone in with only the [Basic Sword Technique], it probably would've ended differently.
Those goblins might've overwhelmed him. Maybe not instantly—but eventually.
Still, it didn't matter now. He had survived, and more than that, he'd won. His class had proven itself useful once again.
He looked around him and noticed that these goblins actually dropped items.
---
[Rusty Dagger]
[Rank: Common]
[Description: A dagger used by goblins to try and kill, it is their most basic weapon.]
---
[Stone Spear]
[Rank: Common]
[Description: Goblins use these from afar to pierce their foes and can also throw them.]
---
[Basic Bow (Broken)]
[Rank: Common]
[Description: A bow used by a Goblin Archer to support its companions from afar, it is broken and unusable.]
---
None of them were particularly impressive, but Sam gathered everything anyway.
'I don't have any family or friends right now,' Sam thought as he threw the rest of the items in the inventory void, 'I guess my starting point wasn't that blessed, though I still got an incredible class to make up for it.'
Despite the bleak thought, he didn't dwell on it. There was no time to feel sorry for himself, not here.
Instead, he turned his attention back to the hallway, expecting something, anything.
After all, killing monsters would usually mean leveling up, right?
In [Forsakened], it was pretty much automatic, as the protagonist gained levels from killing monsters.
But Sam hadn't received anything of the sort, no panel, no nothing.
He was still at Level 0.
But then...
[Absorbing...]
"Huh?"
Sam blinked as his [Primordial Sword] suddenly shifted in his hands.
A strange ripple of dark energy pulsed through it, and then, before his eyes, a twisted black mouth appeared on the flat of the blade.
The air around him warped as tendrils shot out from the sword.
They pierced the goblins' bodies without hesitation, latching onto something inside them, and yanked it out.
"Their cores," Sam whispered.
He watched as the black tendrils pulled those shadowy orbs into the blade. They were absorbed instantly, swallowed by the weapon like it was starving.
[Absorbing the cores of others is your only way to level up. Leave none of them alive.]
Ding!
[Congratulations to Sam Walker for leveling up to Level 1 of the Novice Rank!]
"So that's it..." Sam exhaled slowly. "That's how I level up. Through them."
He didn't know why, but he somehow felt like it was right and made sense with his powers as a [Primordial].
At least it confirmed he could level up. He wasn't stuck at the bottom of the ladder.
That alone made him feel ten times more hopeful than before.
He opened his status window again to confirm the changes.
---
[Name: Sam Walker]
[Class: Primordial]
[Rank: Novice]
[Level: 0 → 1]
[Strength: 4 → 5]
[Agility: 3 → 4]
[Constitution: 4 → 5]
[Soul: 6 → 8]
[Affinities: Shadow]
[Class Skills: Spatial Inventory, Primordial Evolution]
[Skills: Intermediate Sword Technique (Uncommon), Shadow Bullets (Common)]
---
'As expected,' he thought, looking at the [Novice Rank], 'The ranking system is the same.'
When an [Awakener] unlocks their class and enters the [Forsaken] realm, they immediately start at level 0 of the Novice Rank.
It was only when they reached level 10 of that rank that they could complete a task to push their limits and thus evolve to the next rank.
The full rank path was: Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, Ascendant, Forsaken.
Seven total ranks, each harder to reach than the last.
When you moved to the next rank, your level would reset to 1, but you'd keep all your strength.
That reset helped keep things clean and organized, meaning that level might show your progression within a rank, but rank itself was everything.
Still, with his class, Sam believed he had a real shot at making it to the top.
Next, he noticed that each of his attributes, aka strength, agility and constitution went up by one.
Strength was for physical power, agility was for speed, and constitution was your health, how much you can tank since awakeners didn't have HP like monsters did.
As for [Soul], it was the only one that went up by 2, and it was what linked him to his skills, basically his aura.
The more "soul" he got, the more powerful attacks he could summon, though for now he didn't have anything beside [Shadow Bullets].
And so, Sam kept moving forward.
He noticed that the mouth on the blade of his [Primordial Sword] had disappeared, meaning it would only absorb once he killed.
'Does that mean I'm limited to only using this weapon?' Sam wondered.
[The Primordial Sword is the strongest weapon one can receive, and it will evolve alongside you.]
"Figures," Sam said, smiling faintly. "Guess I'm stuck with you."
He picked up his pace, dashing through the long stone hallway.
He wanted to get out of the [Novice Ruins] as soon as he could, as there were more zones once he got out.
Each layer in [Forsakened] was massive, meaning that a single person could never hope to take it all by themselves.
That was why guilds were so prominent: those who pushed through the layers and went the farthest became world-famous and gained authority.
The loot and secrets deep inside the [Forsaken] realm were also much better the deeper you went.
Sam's goal as of now was to acquire the highest amount of skills possible.
It didn't matter their rarity, as he would be able to upgrade them.
'If I could leave right now, I would just wait for a few days to evolve everything to the max,' he thought.
But of course, as the [First Layer] served as a tutorial both in the game and in this world, nobody could leave unless someone that entered this layer cleared the final boss.
Sam didn't know if he would be the one to do that, but as long as he had so little information about this world, he needed to be careful.
He would still try his hardest though, for no matter what, if he wanted to survive, he needed to be strong.
And so, he moved forward.
After a few minutes, Sam wondered why he hadn't seen any monsters yet.
But right at that moment...
Fwish! Zip!
Even though he himself didn't sense anything, his very consciousness told him that danger was close.
It warned him that something was above, and so Sam instantly slashed his sword upward.
Bam!
The corpse of a goblin was severed in half.
"I knew it," Sam grinned, "You assholes try that shit in here too, huh?"
But of course, the fact that he had just discovered a goblin trying to ambush him... meant that the others were alerted.
Some from the hallways around him came out. And there were a lot of them, around 10.
But in addition to the goblins, it seemed like another type of monster showed itself.
"Slimes," Sam groaned as he saw them slowly move toward him as well, they were the size of the goblins as well.
The slimes were blue and in their bodies was a small transparent orb that floated around it like a target.
'Core,' Sam thought.
Yet as these monsters were approaching, encircling him, Sam's eyes suddenly flared.
And then...
Ding!
[Congratulations to Sam Walker for obtaining the skill: Hell-Mode Analysis]