His extensive vitality was silently waging a war against the curse.
Maggot-like tendrils writhed out of his skin. His blood surged in defiance, keeping the curse at bay. But it wasn’t enough. Biting back a wince, he ripped out a strip of blackened tendril hanging out of his skin.
Corruption — Curse ‘??’ is inflicting your blood!
“Fuck, that hurts so much.” He curled into a ball, drowning himself under the water to see if that soothed the pain away. His heart thudded audibly, causing ripples outward. The only rejoicement was in acknowledging that it could have been way worse.
Had he not stopped the skill in time, he could have been a writhing bundle of flesh tendrils by now, just like the treants.
Or maybe not.
He had a lot of life in his bones, more than he cared to admit. He’d have somehow managed if it had gone worse.
But it hadn’t! He could even argue he won.
Verdant skin has gained a new resistance - Minor Curse resistance!
He slumped, his shoulders relaxing visibly.
The hard part was over.
Pain simmered beneath his skin, his body fever-hot even in the water. Inside his veins, newly formed blood cells surged out in a violent flare, tearing the corrupted flesh apart.
It was akin to thousands of hornets stinging him all at once, from his insides. Biting, uncomfortable. Not a process he wanted to ever go through again.
Verdant skin (Low) has grown to Verdant skin (Mid)!
The feeling of growing his skills was amazing. The pain, on the other hand, was not so amazing. He had a sinking suspicion that his class was secretly a sadistic thing. All his skills either caused suffering or advanced through suffering.
He thought he could take beatings well. He thought he was tough and gruff. But he knew now, if he took any more punishment, he might just become a masochist.
“Aw hell nah.”
He exhaled and floated on the water. He had decided he deserved some rest.
Like a great lake, the swamp stretched wide and still, its water clearer than it had any right to be. The wind brought forth the smell of spring, fresh and sweet.
No one was watching, so he allowed himself to let go of his worries and just relaxed. No worrying, no overthinking, just floating around like a jellyfish.
Blub blub blub.
A good while later, he left the water, mind placated from the ashen trees. He snuck a gaze at the jungle, at its peaceful, untouched patches of grass, at the white-barked trees.
Then, he laughed mockingly.
The fae had met a terrible fate here in this jungle, corrupted, twisted into the ones known as ‘Undead treants’. And it was unclear how the sphere inside of him inflicted such a curse, but it must have had something to do with it.
Because he held Fae blood inside him, it latched onto him, too. He had to be thankful for his class restricting his blood siphoning. The 33% limit was there for a good reason.
He brought his clothes out, which had been adequately dried already, putting them on.
Repeated Bloodflare had quenched his muscles, turning them denser, leaner, more compact. He always preferred the athletic look, so he didn’t mind. When needed, these frail-looking flesh bundles would burst out with the same inhuman strength and vitality.
Done admiring himself, he put on his pants. Torn and charred they were, but he wouldn’t walk around with no junk protection. Just as he was about to put his longjacket on, a noise erupted—wood striking wood—clattering excitedly.
Clack! Clack!
The black coffin rushed forward, clacking its lid closed and open in an eager manner. It seemed like it wanted to say something. For something without a mouth, that was a difficult thing to achieve.
“What?” Zayn annoyedly stared at the black coffin.
He was convinced the compensation he’d gotten from sysadmin007 had been a deception, just another way to troll him.
[Silver] was the third difficulty of compensation, and his mind kept stumbling back to the same thought, ‘I should have received something better than a living coffin.’
The weirdest thing was—this plain-looking thing was indestructible. Nothing could hurt it, not his punches, not the treants, not even the stone ape. Wherever he left it, it’d return clacking back moments later. Not a single scratch on it.
Also, he was fairly certain this thing also wanted him dead, but he couldn’t prove it yet.
Clack!
“Stop it!” Zayn once again began to put the longcoat on. That made the coffin go haywire, slapping its lid on and off loud enough to reverberate through the empty woods.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
“Hmm?” Zayn stared at it in confusion, and then at the tattered longcoat in his hand. Pointing at the coat, he questioned. “You want this? One clack for yes.”
Clack!
“I’m not giving it to you. Go away.”
Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack!
“Okay! Stop! Why do you want it?”
Clack! Clack!
Yeah, right.
He’d lost his mind, trying to converse with a goddamned coffin. He pursed his lips, “You’re going to give it back?”
Clack!
It opened the lid after that, clearly pointing him to put it inside.
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Cautiously, he laid the long coat inside the coffin. Even if it did something weird, he didn’t mind walking around with his torso out in the open. A while ago, his skin had begun to be tougher than the coat anyway.
As soon as he put it inside, the coffin closed its lids, gobbling it up. Then it thrummed like a washing machine.
What was that about?
He brushed his eyes at the insignia of hammer and scalpel. There was just no way…nope. Yeah nah. Soon, the shaking stopped, and a rectangular slot opened up in the middle.
“What now?” Zayn shot a level gaze at the coffin. Then, he looked at the slot again. The hole in the middle was shaped like a mana crystal.
He’d seen this shape, very familiar with it, in fact. He just couldn’t believe it. It was asking him to pay! His money! How ludicrous!
No. He must be mistaken.
Out of his storage ring, he scoured out a mana crystal to match.
“...”
If gazes could kill, the coffin would be dead a million times right there. He launched himself at it.
Kicking and punching for an entire minute.
Only a while later did he realize—he had only made his limbs sore. This thing felt no pain anyway. And why should it?
It was a fucking coffin.
The longcoat wasn’t useful enough to warrant even one crystal. But…he had to know. What the hell is its function?
He inserted one crystal, but the hole remained open. It wanted more? Fine. He kept putting in more. Until the count went up to nine crystals. Then he almost felt like crying in regret, wondering if he should give it another round of beating.
As he froze in despair and regret, the slot retracted. The lid opened with a thud, and inside sat a crimson longcoat—brand new.
“Eh?”
Zayn picked up the new garment, feeling its dense yet soft fabrics. Stronger, sturdier, a shade deeper, it was way more magnificent than the one he got from the system admin. The parts torn were replaced with a deeper shade of crimson, giving the coat an elegant but edgy flair.
He didn’t dislike that.
Longcoat (Basic) +1 - A basic piece of cloth enchanted with mana.
Zayn blinked in surprise, taken aback. Then he turned to stare at the coffin that always followed him.
Could it be?
This simple-looking coffin here might be the actual compensation. It could enchant things with mana! Fix broken things and make them even better!
Could it fix him?
But the system didn’t give him an item description. Neither did his skill, as it had no ambient mana. Perhaps because the thing absorbed all the mana? Or it was too high-level to perceive.
He blurted out the more important question, “Can you do this to weapons too?”
Clack!
***
Mirroring the events of yesterday night, the stone golems had all vanished. Even the Old Gravekeeper just turned into smoke, going who knew where. So now Zayn was truly alone, roaming around the forest with nothing but a walking, clacking coffin.
How wonderful!
Ding! Northwalker sent you a text!
Zayn clicked on the notification faster than the time his crush had texted him back.
Northwalker: How do you even know of the Shattered Abyss at your level? Well, if you really want to know, the shattered abyss is part of the ********* ****....
Northwalker: This f*****g system...’
Northwalker: F*** **********************’
Your Benefector ‘Northwalker’ has been muted for 1 hour for the repeated usage of inappropriate language!
Zayn went still, arms hanging loosely on the sides. Did he have a single normal person around him?
Every interaction with Northwalker recalibrated his understanding of this benefactor. From some wise Gandalf-esque figure, he’d gone down to just some guy rage-smashing his keyboard…
Though he could feel his pain.
Most days, it was hard to deal with the system’s bullshit. Today was most days.
“Whatever,” Blood snuck out of his skin into a crimson blade the size of a knife. Then he did the most sensible thing he could do with it—peeling the dry bark and storing it.
A pile of them sat at one corner of his storage ring. But he went around and collected some more just in case he didn’t have the chance to later.
Not because he’d finally lost his mind; he had a solid plan. He thought.
Once prepared, he pulled the barks and roots he’d collected, and the bottle of petrol he had litched from Raka. That had sent the motorcycle grumbling for an hour.
Class Quest(IV) - Understand an
Reward: New buff unlocked ‘Bloodburn’!
Zayn snorted.
The generation of scientists on earth would have rolled in their graves knowing their scientific theories—oxidation, combustion, and heat production—were worth as much as farts after the apocalypse.
The problem wasn’t that the theories of Earth didn’t work. The problem was that the old grave’s fires were also much too ‘high concept’ for him. And his advice, even vaguer!
How does one find their fire? Would this fire just come out randomly on a fine Saturday?
What day was it today?
“No, I don’t have forever.” So here he was, trying to put it into action. To understand fire, he just had to feel it, right?
That seemed like sound logic to him.
So…he just had to put everything on fire!
Mixing the bark, resin, and fuel, he made some easily combustible ‘Fireballs’, each at slightly different concentrations to see what really packed the biggest punch.
Next, he needed a source of heat to make it all go down in flames. He had that covered, too. After all, who could heat things better than the problem child of the house?
Stings of Red mana folded and collapsed inside of him as he intently stared at the ball. After three folds, he pushed it down inside the first fireball of the lowest concentration, not intending to go overboard.
The mix of bark and petrol crackled, sizzled, and wafted into a heavy, acrid smell. He receded quickly in case anything went wrong. Something did go wrong, indeed.
Just a few seconds later, the sizzling stopped dead in its tracks.
His face became tight. “How is that possible?”
Crinkling his nose, he inhaled the lingering burn in the air. Weird, he had certainly felt the combustion, and this smell was clear proof. The combustion had happened, but somehow, the fire hadn't begun.
Why’d the fire not begin?
He stood there feeling a bit out of it.
***
Feat fragment unlocked!
Who let him cook?! (Iron)
You had one job. One job and you failed… ten times in a row. Rejoice that you’ve not blasted yourself to oblivion.
Effect: + 1 fortitude.
Zayn spat out hot air and coughed out loud. Waves of smoke spewed from the charred ball, billowing up in the air in twisting ribbons. Ash clung to his lungs, sharp and bitter.
There was no fire, yet the hazy heat only seemed to spread out everywhere.
His fingers throbbed with a sharp, tingling ache. A few of them were missing flesh, others skin. By now, he was sure.
Like, real sure—insufficient friction wasn’t the problem. Neither was the diesel nor the bark.
Last time, he’d even folded the mana sixth time, something capable of blasting off buildings and denting metals. And yet, it did not light a pint of fire. The mix just crackled and then turned into smoke and heat after a few seconds.
In search of fire, he had made only smoke.
It was as if everything in the forest was resisting…fire.
As if they didn’t like fire…
Right
If he were burnt and turned into some eldritch horror, he wouldn’t like it either. But as things stood, he required fire. For survival, not just for the quest. To have any chance of surviving at night.
Northwalker has sent you a text!
Northwalker: About shattered abyss, do you recall nightmares where you are being hunted by some weird, scary thing? Shattered abyss is that on droids…uhh, it's impossible for you understand without experiencing it. Anyways, whatever scary thing your subconscious can imagine exists in there somewhere. Whatever you can’t possibly imagine exists there too, and it's those that are the real ‘Nightmares’.
Having already experienced it, Zayn felt that description quite matched the Shattered Abyss.
His nightmares better be scared of him, though, because next time, he’d fuck them all up.
The smog he created was surprisingly intense, turning all beyond a few meters impossible to perceive. Something about it felt wrong. Alien. The way swirled and twisted around itself, almost like the time he'd fallen from Earth to Eledra.
His jaw tightened as he planted himself in place. When the smog cleared, an intense ashen smell wormed into his lungs once more.
“This smell…why?”
As mana latched onto his blood, a cold shiver ran through his spine.
‘I see you now’ detects immense corruption!
The roof of his throat dried as he saw through the fog, staring right at the black ground beneath his feet.
The land had cracked like a shattered sheet of ice, underneath which ran black ichor like a flowing river.
With great difficulty, he turned his neck up and saw the ashen trees more clearly. Each of their bodies was grotesquely morphed and twisted by something, out of sensible order. On their rotten bodies were tumorous protrusions that discharged the same black ichor running below the ground.
He came to a conclusion he didn’t like.
His insides quivered as he asked, “Say, Northwalker, if someone ‘mistakenly’ walks into the shattered abyss, how should they find their way out?”
Northwalker: What do you mean, mistakenly walk into Shattered Abyss? To get in there requires at minimum a **** grade Rift mage with a ******-talent. You’re saying someone would enter it mistakenly. That's not even—
“I’m inside the shattered abyss.”
The words halted in a freeze.
Northwalker: You WHAT?!