No way.
There's just no way...
I shook my head in denial and slapped my face.
"Ow... Is this a dream...?"
No, it wasn't a dream.
I could feel the pain of my slap.
Ouch, it hurts.
Why did I slap myself so hard?
Now I understood why everything had suddenly become so real, unlike a VR game.
The sensations were more vivid, and there was no longer any alien feeling like before.
That's because I really had transmigrated into the game, as my character...
It was crazy to even think about.
My heart beat faster as excitement took over my mind.
I stood up and shouted.
"HELL YEAH!!!"
The loud voice made some birds fly away in surprise.
I kept punching the air with a smile on my face.
"LET'S GO!! MY LONG-AWAITED WISH!! HAHAHAHA!!"
After a moment of celebration, I collapsed on the blanket in exhaustion and took a long breath, looking up at the beautiful night sky.
"What do I do now...?"
Should I dominate this world?
Oh, then I should get stronger first.
I should level up.
I patted the dirt off my clothes and stood up.
I looked at the night sky.
It was certainly dark.
Is it too late to level up?
Nah, grinding doesn't care about time.
Even if it's the middle of the night!
I folded the blanket and set it aside, not wanting to lose it since it was the only one I had.
After getting everything ready, I steadied myself.
"Let's go."
I walked in a random direction, trying to find a weak monster.
After a while, I found nothing.
It seemed monsters were harder to find at night.
After more searching, I found a lone slime.
It was about two meters big, made of acidic liquid, with a metal core visible inside.
[Lv. 16]
Perfect.
Logically speaking, I couldn't kill this monster at my current level.
Even with my absurd 99,999 Magic, it was useless without any offensive magic.
So my only way to attack was [Random Skills], and what it pulled was totally up to my luck.
"Here goes nothing."
I cast the skill, stretching my arm toward the slime while keeping my distance.
It was about 20 meters away, far enough that the slime wouldn't notice me, and close enough for my skill to land.
[Random Skills activated.]
Praying to god that a useful skill would actually activate, I held my breath.
[Rainbow Hair (Legendary) activated (Lv. Max)]
[Duration: 15 seconds]
When I read it, I was stunned.
A legendary skill, but it sounded useless.
"What...?"
My hair suddenly started glowing and flashing in different colors like a rainbow.
This made me very noticeable in the middle of the night.
With barely any light around, and my hair flashing brightly, I was the spotlight.
"..."
The slime in the distance noticed me and charged.
I panicked and stretched my arm toward it to cast my skill again.
[Unable to cast Random Skills as it is currently active.]
[Duration: 10 seconds]
"...You're kidding me."
I dashed to the left, barely dodging the charging slime.
Then I stared at it and, for the first time, pushed my [Magical Aura] to the maximum.
Like a shockwave, intense mana spread around me, making the grass sway.
Blue mana shot out of my body and wrapped the area, far beyond what I could see.
Then, as if the air had been compressed, the scene experienced extreme pressure.
The ground, the air, and the grass all vibrated and shook.
"Oh..."
The green field was covered in blue mana, stretching farther than the eye could see.
Looking around, I was surprised by the magnitude.
This was the maximum output of [Magical Aura].
It made sense, since it was proportional to my Magic stat, which was 99,999...
[Mana: -1,000]
[Mana: 99,249/100,249]
[Mana: -1,000]
[Mana: 98,249/100,249]
[Mana: -1,000]
[Mana: 97,249/100,249]
It consumes a large amount of mana, huh?
Seriously, 1,000 mana per second?
With my current mana, I could only maintain this output for 100 seconds?
Looking at the slime, which was incapacitated and unable to move under my [Magical Aura], I decided to take this opportunity to attack while I still had mana.
My hair was back to normal.
The duration had ended, which meant I could use my random skills again.
I raised my arm toward it and aimed.
[Random Skills activated.]
Please, be an offensive magic skill.
Please...!
[Glacier (Rare) activated (Lv. Max)]
"Oh—"
I felt the mana around me flow into the ground, forming a massive magic circle with the slime at its center.
The circle was a few hundred meters wide.
The air pressure dropped, and everything went silent.
Moisture in the air froze, forming a pale white and blue haze.
I saw the slime stop.
No, it was freezing, from bottom to top, as if time were slowing it down.
The slime, originally a monster made of liquid, became a crystal statue.
Then the whole area shook as the ground split open.
From the center, a massive continent-sized mass of ice shot out, swallowing grass, soil, and the slime, and forming a huge mountain of ice and snow.
The shockwave pushed me far away, but I felt no pain, no cold, and no impact.
After landing quite a distance away, I steadied myself, unable to stop my heart from pounding, and stared at what I had created.
On top of a green field stood a massive mountain made of ice.
Everything around it was frozen, even the grass.
And here I was, safe and sound despite being near it when it happened.
That's because of the game's skill system.
A user's skills can't hurt the user.
"Holy..."
I was dumbfounded, looking at the mess I had made.
Who would have thought I'd pull a rare skill?
I calmed myself down and lowered the intensity of my [Magical Aura], since it was draining my mana.
The mana wrapping the area disappeared like nothing, leaving only the silent night... and a huge mountain of ice.
"I killed the slime, didn't I...?"
Since it was level 16, I should have leveled up from level 1.
I waited for the notification, and a panel appeared in my vision.
[+0]
[+0]
... (99+ more)
[Level 1: 0/30,929]
"...What?"
What's with this absurd EXP requirement!?
And why am I not gaining EXP?
I clicked on the panel.
[You've killed a slime! +0 EXP. Opponent is too low-leveled!]
[You've killed a goblin! +0 EXP. Opponent is too low-leveled!]
...
[You've killed a slime! +0 EXP. Opponent is too low-leveled!]
It seemed the area of my attack was so large that I had killed nearby monsters too, but every notification was the same.
Opponent is too low-leveled to grant EXP.
"What do you mean, low-leveled! I'm level 1!"
I shouted at the panel, only to be met with silence.
The panel can't talk.
I had no idea why this was happening...
"Sigh... So I can't level up...?"
If I couldn't gain EXP, leveling up was impossible.
Then I should hunt for artifacts and treasure across the map instead.
That should give me some form of protection, since I couldn't keep relying on luck.
[Random Skills] wasn't reliable in the long run.
Luckily, I knew the location of every artifact.
I should be able to collect all of them by myself.
"No worries. I'll find a way to level up soon..."
For now, I couldn't level up because of this bug, but I could still get stronger.
Okay...
Let's go to the town I saw.
I'd just hide my horn for now.
As for removing it?
No way.
I'm a great white dragon.
This is my horn.
I tore some fabric off my clothes, covered my head with it, and headed toward the town.
***
Some time later, in the empire's adventurer guild.
I'm Silver Jake, the guild master.
I held my head in pain with my eyebrows knotted, looking at the man across the table.
That man was Samuel Pie, an S-rank adventurer, and also my assistant.
"Have you discovered the cause of the mana outburst?"
I waited for his answer.
His face was visibly troubled as he searched through his documents.
"...Yes. We found a mountain of ice, possibly caused by the same entity responsible for the mana outburst."
He placed the documents on the table, his expression tense.
"When we arrived, there was no sign of any monster... However, I have a hypothesis."
He paused, his hands slightly shaking as he looked at me.
A heavy atmosphere filled the room.
"...A dragon caused it."