Player Level Up—Level 10
“Hmm, that’s odd.” Kevin noticed no attribute points to allocate, something different for the class allocation?
Player Classes Unlocked—Transporting
He had barely time to process the system message as the familiar white light bolted into his vision. The white never subsided. And then the floating orb of the AI appeared again. His body faded into his periphery.
“Congratulations!” The AI said, as if coerced to. “You’ve made it to class selection.”
“What exactly does a cl-”
“Don’t interrupt!” The AI’s body swelled and turned bright ruby red, dying down almost immediately. “The system will now analyse your playstyle and give you the top 5 recommendations best suited to your build and choices.”
Two minutes passed, Kevin not daring to speak again while the system worked in the background. Time did seem to be drawing on and as Kevin opened his mouth to speak, five cards appeared, not in his vision, but as floating infographics:
Bulwark
“Stone does not question the storm.”
Automatic Growth (per level, from 10 onward):
+2 Constitution
+1 Strength
Free Growth (per level):
+1 (any attribute, player choice)
Core Abilities:
- Ironclad Stance: Reduce incoming damage by 25% for 8 sec. Movement speed halved. (30s CD)
- Shieldwall Bash: Deal (STR × 1.2) and stun for 2 sec. (20s CD)
- Guardian’s Mark: Force enemy to attack you; +5% damage resist while active. (45s CD)
- Second Wind (Passive): Regain 2% max HP every 5 sec if undamaged for 6 sec.
Grave Knight
“Your blood is mine.”
Automatic Growth (per level, from 10 onward)
+2 Strength
+1 Constitution
Free Growth (per level)
+1 (any attribute)
Core Abilities:
- Sanguine Cleave: Wide strike, (STR × 1.5) damage, heal 30% dealt. (15s CD)
- Boneguard: Skeletal armor, ?20% magic damage for 12 sec. (60s CD)
- Defiled Pact: Sacrifice 10% max HP to gain +20% damage for 12 sec. (60s CD)
- Blood Debt (Passive): Basic attacks heal 2% of damage dealt.
Warden of Thorns
“Roots endure where flesh fails.”
Automatic Growth (per level, from 10 onward)
+2 Constitution
+1 Wisdom
Free Growth (per level)
+1 (any attribute)
Core Abilities
- Vine Lash: Root an enemy 3 sec, (SPR × 1.2) damage. (20s CD)
- Barkskin: ?15% damage taken for 6 sec. (25s CD)
- Symbiosis: Redirect 10% of an ally’s incoming damage to self for 10 sec. (60s CD)
- Verdant Pulse (Passive): Regenerate 3% max HP every 5 sec; allies nearby heal 1%
Oathbreaker
“Strength is the only vow unbroken.”
Automatic Growth (per level, from 10 onward)
+3 Strength
Free Growth (per level)
+1 (any attribute)
Core Abilities
- Dark Vow: Sacrifice 15% HP to deal equivalent shadow damage in an AoE. (45s CD)
- Withering Strike: Strike lowers target STR by 2 for 10 sec. (20s CD)
- Executioner’s Toll: Deal (STR × 2.0); if target <25% HP, deal 200% bonus damage. (30s CD)
- Unyielding Malice (Passive): +5% attack damage per 10% missing HP.
Sentinel
“When all else falls, I stand.”
Automatic Growth (per level, from 10 onward)
+1 Strength +1 Constitution +1 Wisdom
Free Growth (per level)
+1 (any attribute)
Core Abilities
- Standfast: Immune to stun, knockback, silence for 4 sec. (40s CD)
- Rallying Cry: Allies gain +2 CON for 10 sec. (60s CD)
- Intercept: Dash to absorb 50% of an ally’s incoming attack within 10m. (30s CD)
- Delayed Mitigation (Passive): 20% of all damage taken is stored as “delayed bleed,” applied over 10 sec.
The five cards hovered there, framed in faint white light, as though waiting for his hand. The AI gave a dismissive hum, cube-shape folding into a sphere and back again.
“Choose carefully,” it crooned. “This is the last time you’ll decide what you are. After this… you’ll only decide how you die.”
Kevin leaned closer to the first card as though the hovering text were carved into a headstone.
Bulwark
Stone does not question the storm.
His eyes moved line by line, taking in the stat growth, the phrasing of abilities. Constitution stacked further. A little Strength, enough to hit back without feeling like he was slapping things with wet cloth. Second Wind. A natural regen baked into the skin of the class.
He exhaled, low. “So this is the obvious choice, isn’t it?”
The AI swelled into a dodecahedron, each face sneering at him in synchrony. “Obvious is such a boring word. Call it expected. Call it tedious inevitability. Yes. You’ve spent ten levels walling yourself in, and the System—my magnificent self—now offers you the keys to a thicker wall. Do try not to be surprised.”
Kevin frowned. “It says natural regeneration… two percent every ten seconds. That’s barely more than a trickle.”
“Ah, but a trickle sustains rivers,” the AI said, rotating into a cube with a halo of smug light. “You think it meager because you still measure survival in seconds and blows. But when you’ve lasted five minutes longer than the screaming fool beside you, you’ll remember the drip, drip, drip of life returning, and you’ll understand endurance is a resource most mortals squander.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, reading over Guardian’s Mark. Force a target to attack him. His stomach knotted. “So what, I get to paint a target on myself?”
“Correct!” the AI sparkled like a shattered diamond, voice dripping with cheer. “You already walk around begging the universe to kick you in the ribs. Now you can formalize the arrangement.”
Kevin scowled. “And the stun, the stance… it’s all about holding ground. But where’s the win condition? If all I do is block and take hits, then what? Wait until they get bored?”
The AI spun lazily into a starburst, points glinting like teeth. “Ah, the eternal lament of the anvil: who swings the hammer for me? If you cannot imagine allies—or if you prefer your enemies dead of attrition—then perhaps this path does not dazzle you. But remember: walls reshape wars. You will not kill quickly, Rat Slayer. But you may outlast everything that tries.”
Kevin’s gaze returned to the passive line, Second Wind. A tiny, stubborn loop of healing. Enough to matter if he played carefully. Enough to matter if he kept dragging fights longer than anyone thought possible. His chest tightened with something both grim and reassuring.
“So this is me doubled down,” he muttered.
“Indeed,” the AI said, reshaping into a sphere, smugly perfect. “The System has seen your petty obsession with constitution, your quaint little rat-leather set, your endless grinding. And what does it gift you? More of the same. You are not complicated, Kevin. You are a wall pretending to have doubts.”
“Alright,” he said, low. “Show me the next one.”
Grave Knight
Your blood is mine.
Kevin felt his jaw tighten. The lettering itself looked wet, like it had been written in something freshly spilled. His eyes moved line by line. Strength. Constitution. Not far off from Bulwark, but this one… had teeth.
He read aloud, just to anchor himself: “Sanguine Cleave. Damage dealt heals you.”
The AI chuckled, a wet sound for once, cube-face blooming with cracks. “Yes, yes. Unlike that other class, this one doesn’t wait for a trickle of grace to find your veins. You want life? You take it back with a swing. Your enemy’s misfortune is your pulse.”
Kevin’s hand curled slightly, phantom weight of his shield in it. “So I stay alive only if I keep hitting. No rest. No pause.”
“Exactly,” the AI purred, stretching itself into a long prism, lines jagged like ribs. “A feast requires food, Kevin. You will dine upon whatever bleeds in front of you. Stop swinging and you stop living. A fair trade, don’t you think?”
He frowned at Defiled Pact. Sacrificing his own health to deal more damage. “That… feels like the opposite of staying alive.”
“Ah, but haven’t you learned yet? Survival is not about hoarding your life. It’s about gambling it better than the poor fool across from you. You bleed a little now to make sure they bleed out completely. Efficient. Brutal. Delicious.”
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Kevin shook his head slowly. “And what about magic defense? Boneguard… so it’s just a short window of resistance. Doesn’t feel reliable.”
The AI rotated into a sphere, splitting briefly into a skull before snapping back. “Reliable? My dear slab of meat, nothing here is reliable. That’s the point. You carve bone around you for twelve seconds and pray it holds. You want certainty? Go back to Bulwark and wait for Second Wind like a good boy.”
His eyes lingered on the passive: Blood Debt. A percentage of every basic attack returning as health. It tugged at him—there was a rhythm in it, an ugly kind of safety: strike, bleed, recover, repeat.
“Feels like being chained to the fight,” he muttered.
“Precisely!” the AI sang. “You cannot disengage, Kevin. To live, you must fight. To stop fighting is to stop living. A very… poetic condition, don’t you think? Especially for someone who’s spent most of his life not fighting anything at all.”
The words dug deeper than he’d admit. He looked back to the first card, the Bulwark, steady and stubborn. Then at this one—violent, hungry, a wall turned predator.
Two shapes of endurance. One passive, one ravenous.
“Alright,” he whispered, more to himself than the AI. “Next.”
The third card bloomed slowly, less a flare of light and more a patient crawl. Vines coiled across the white void, weaving a frame of thorn and bark until the words burned through in deep green.
Warden of Thorns
Roots endure where flesh fails.
Kevin squinted, his lips pulling tight. The very presentation felt different—less martial steel, more creeping inevitability. His eyes drifted to the stat lines: Constitution. Wisdom.
“Wisdom,” he muttered. “Finally something that isn’t just piling Strength on top of the meat.”
The AI’s shape unfurled into a spiral, thin lines like curling tendrils. Its voice softened into a mockery of reverence. “Ah, yes. The great mystery stat. You’ve ignored it, Rat Slayer, but here it is, extending leafy fingers toward you. Wisdom is your tether to what lingers beneath bark and bone. To mana. To regeneration. To things that are patient in a way you have never been.”
Kevin scowled. “Vine Lash. Roots an enemy. Damage scales off Wisdom. That’s… control, isn’t it?”
“Mm,” the AI hummed, rippling into a perfect cone. “Control. Restraint. Imagine, for once, stopping someone else’s swing instead of just standing there and begging for it.”
He looked down the list. Barkskin—flat damage reduction. Practical. Symbiosis—redirecting an ally’s damage to himself. He grimaced. “That’s not protection. That’s just… bleeding for someone else.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve always done?” The AI cut in, voice like dripping sap. “Take the weight, bear the bruise, hope it spares someone you think matters more. Symbiosis merely formalizes the masochism. And with a flourish, too—ten percent, clean and sharp. They suffer less, you suffer more. Elegant.”
Kevin’s hand hovered over the final line. Verdant Pulse. A passive regeneration, steady, pulsing. His throat worked. “Three percent max health every five seconds. That’s stronger than Bulwark’s trickle.”
“And allies, too,” the AI added, starbursting out into jagged leaves. “You become a walking garden. They cluster near you, drink from your presence. Of course, that also means you’ll be everyone’s favorite target. Kill the garden, starve the field. How noble.”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s… more support than I wanted.”
“Support, Kevin? Or leverage?” the AI teased, glowing a venomous green. “With this, your survival is not yours alone. Their survival hangs on your spine. A charming arrangement—especially for someone who pretends he doesn’t want to matter.”
Kevin clenched his jaw, staring at the green glow until it felt like moss was crawling across his skin. A different kind of endurance. A different way to stand.
“Fine,” he muttered, voice sharp. “Next one.”
The air itself seemed to recoil as the next card manifested. Not vines, not blood — just raw fracture. The white void cracked, splinters of black and crimson seeping through like veins of coal-fire until the panel burned into focus.
Oathbreaker
Strength is the only vow unbroken.
Kevin felt his stomach sink. Even the name seemed designed to sneer at him. He read the stat growth—Strength, Strength, and more Strength. His earlier Constitution-stacking laughed bitterly at the thought.
“Three points. All into raw muscle,” he muttered. “That’s… reckless.”
The AI quivered, form shifting into a long blade that pulsed with red. Its voice came low, conspiratorial. “Not reckless, Kevin. Pure. Imagine abandoning the safety blankets. No Constitution. No Wisdom. No drip-feed of borrowed life. Just strike first, strike last, and pray you still stand when the dust clears.”
Kevin’s eyes tracked the first ability: Dark Vow. Sacrifice fifteen percent of his own health to unleash an explosion. His lips pressed into a flat line.
“So I hurt myself just to hurt them.”
“Yes,” the AI cooed, splitting into jagged shards. “Because winning is not about not dying. Winning is about ensuring they die faster. You, Rat Slayer, have spent your life dragging it out. This is the opposite—compressed violence, measured in your own blood. A worthy upgrade from… vermin duty.”
He flinched slightly, eyes narrowing. Withering Strike. Executioner’s Toll. Debuffs, brutal finishers. Efficiency carved into the language.
“Executioner’s Toll,” Kevin read aloud. “Double damage if they’re already nearly dead. Feels cheap.”
“Not cheap. Merciful,” the AI said with a grin audible in its tone. “Why drag out a fight? Why pretend at chivalry? You’ve already admitted you’re not the hero. Here, you become the butcher. Your swing is the period at the end of every sentence.”
His gaze lingered on the passive: Unyielding Malice. Bonus damage scaling higher the closer he was to death. His throat tightened. “So… the more beaten I am, the stronger I hit.”
“Oh yes,” the AI hissed. “Every gasp, every stagger, every crack in your ribs makes you hit harder. This class does not fear dying—it weaponizes it. Isn’t that beautiful? To turn your weakness into a blade?”
Kevin closed his eyes for a long moment, exhaling through his teeth. His mind flitted back to Second Wind, to Verdant Pulse, to even the steady drip of Blood Debt. They offered ways to cling on. This… offered none.
He muttered, “Feels like suicide dressed up as a class.”
“Ah,” the AI said, spinning into a perfect blood-red cube. “But it’s the only one honest enough to admit what this game is.”
The words sat heavy, darker than the void itself. Kevin tore his gaze from the panel, forcing his attention forward. “Next.”
Sentinel
When all else falls, I stand.
Kevin blinked. After the Oathbreaker’s jagged malice, this one felt… almost gentle. Balanced stat lines: Strength, Constitution, Wisdom. Evenly spread. A rare lack of extremity.
He muttered, “Finally something that doesn’t read like a death wish.”
The AI shifted into a perfect sphere, gleaming like polished metal. “Mediocrity, at last. You were waiting for it, weren’t you? A middle road for the middle man. How touching.”
Kevin read on. Standfast: immunity to stuns, knockbacks, silences. He imagined the last rat that had bowled him over, the helpless seconds where he could do nothing. “That would have saved me more than once,” he admitted.
“Mm,” the AI hummed, flattening into a shield-shape. “Sometimes survival is not in bleeding more, or killing faster, but in refusing to be moved. An unyielding pillar—how poetic.”
He read the next line. Rallying Cry. Allies gained Constitution when he shouted. He frowned. “So this one leans… supportive.”
“Leans?” the AI cackled, unfolding into a starburst of mocking rays. “It screams support. You bolster their flimsy bodies, intercept their mistakes, carry their failures. All so they can bask in the illusion of survival. How very selfless of you, Kevin.”
Kevin’s lips pressed tight as he scanned Intercept—a dash to absorb half the damage of an ally’s incoming attack. He pictured himself throwing his body between someone and death, felt the weight of it in his chest. He’d already been doing that, hadn’t he? Without the dash, without the mechanics, just instinct.
Finally, his gaze settled on the passive: Delayed Mitigation. A portion of all damage stored as bleed, spread over ten seconds instead of hitting instantly. His stomach knotted. “So I still take the hit, just… slower.”
The AI purred, splitting into slow-turning gears. “Precisely. A reprieve, not a reprieve. Time to drink your potions, chew your herbs, pray to whatever rat-gods you adore before the real pain arrives. You don’t avoid the damage—you negotiate with it.”
Kevin shook his head, unsure if the thought was comforting or damning. “So I drag it out. Again. Like everything else.”
“Indeed,” the AI said smoothly. “Your entire life in one passive. Delay, defer, endure. The Sentinel makes a virtue of what you already do: suffer later.”
Kevin stood in the center of the white void, the five cards orbiting him like damning options on a menu he never asked to see. He turned slowly, eyes dragging from one to the next.
Bulwark. Solid, familiar, steady.
Grave Knight. Blood and hunger.
Warden of Thorns. Roots and sacrifice.
Oathbreaker. Reckless violence.
Sentinel. Balance and burden.
His mind chewed them over like tough gristle.
Bulwark. He saw himself as he had been these past days—hunched in ratleather, shield up, bracing through blows until the enemy tired. It was dull. It was thankless. But it worked. And it was him. Second Wind. Natural regen. The same stubborn crawl I’ve always done. I can live with that.
The AI chuckled, reshaping into a cube as if to box him in. “Live, yes. But oh, Kevin, how tediously. A rat wall. A meat barricade. Your enemies will yawn themselves to death.”
Grave Knight. He imagined the red swing, the lifeblood rushing back into him with every strike. There was a savage appeal in it, a way of fighting that meant never stopping. But what happens when there’s nothing left to hit? What happens when it’s me, bleeding out in the quiet?
The AI purred, “That’s the point, little wall. You don’t stop. You can’t. You die the moment you stand still. Just like your life before this—if you stop working, stop grinding, you collapse. Isn’t it familiar?”
Kevin grit his teeth and turned to the next.
Warden of Thorns. A garden in his chest, pulsing life into himself and others. Barkskin, Symbiosis, roots and regen. It’s strong. Stronger than the others, maybe. But it ties me to people. To keeping them alive. To failing them if I can’t.
His mother’s voice whispered in his memory: please, Kevin, leave the city, stay with your kin where it’s safe. He hadn’t gone. He hadn’t saved her. The thought of carrying that weight again made his gut twist.
The AI hissed in false sympathy, turning green with leafy smugness. “Yes, yes. Imagine failing all over again. Oh, the melodrama. Best not choose this one, wall-boy. You’re not built for roots—you’re built for rubble.”
Kevin turned sharply away, almost relieved to see the harsh light of the next.
Oathbreaker. Three words into the abilities and his stomach soured. Bleed yourself to hurt them, strike harder the closer you are to death. I’ve spent years clinging on. I don’t want to be the one tearing chunks out of myself just to throw them back.
“Cowardice!” the AI bellowed, flaring crimson. “How delicious. You balk at a little bloodletting? You, who’ve wasted half your life bleeding time into nothing? Oathbreaker is honesty incarnate, Kevin. You simply can’t look it in the eye.”
Kevin’s lips pressed into a thin, angry line as he turned to the final card.
Sentinel. Steady, supportive, intercepting blows. Delayed pain, spread thin. A buffer, a bandage, not an answer. It’s noble. It’s useful. But it’s also just… waiting. Bleeding slower doesn’t mean bleeding less.
The AI smirked through its polished sphere form. “Ah, but doesn’t that sound like you? Delay the hurt, push it back, deal with it later. The perfect class for a man who keeps everything unsaid.”
Kevin inhaled sharply, chest tight. His eyes swept all five one last time.
The Bulwark stared back, steady and simple. It’s not glamorous. It’s not clever. But it’s me. I’ve survived this long by being hard to break. I’ll keep surviving that way.
He felt the words form in his chest, heavier than they should have been. “I choose… Bulwark.”
The AI spun, giddy with cruel delight. “Ah, the wall picks more wall. Predictable to the end. Very well.”
The card burned white, the others dissolving like ash in a breeze.
Class Selected – Bulwark
Automatic Growth Path Assigned
Ability Package Unlocked
The void began to collapse around him. His body returned to his senses, heaviness flooding back into his limbs. He gripped his shield instinctively.
The AI’s voice lingered, smug and echoing. “Congratulations, Kevin. You are now a slightly larger, slightly sturdier wall. Do try not to fall over in the dungeon. It would be terribly embarrassing.”
He felt a trickle of ice crawling up his legs, it felt wet as it spread and spread up his body. A fine film of a clear liquid covered his entirety. It reached his mouth, blocking his breath. And then, all of the sudden it turned red hot. Hotter than boiling. He tried to scream but no noise came from his throat, instead the liquid piled in too. And then the white was gone, and he was back in the inn, breath rattling, but somehow heavier. Stronger.
Kevin—Rat Slayer—Level 10—Bulwark
Strength: 6 (+1) Wolf Fang Amulet = 7
Dexterity: 0 (+2) Ratleather Armour Set Bonus = 2
Intellect: 4
Wisdom: 0
Charisma: 0
Constitution: 20 (+2) Ratleather Tower Shields = 22
He could feel a tangible difference as he gripped the mug of mead. The metal of the tankard flexed like paper under his digits as he readjusted this grip. It felt like such a vast change in his physiology despite such a low number in strength. The ratleather armour didn’t feel any tighter. And his overall form hadn’t seemed to change much—other than slightly more meat on his bones from the extra food and drink that he would be otherwise missing back home. If I could go the rest of my life without seeing another noodle, I goddamned will! He thought to himself as he tasted the porridge. It had berries of varying shapes, sizes and colours floating throughout that he could have sworn Renna had experimented with, each zing of flavour always sent a jolt of electricity through his body, like tasting just a drop of a powerful potion.