"Father, am I not useful anymore?" A question echoed in a blur.
A robotic voice replied, "Your value here has been exhausted. You have to define your own value from now on."
"But this is all I have, all I was created for."
"Child, change is not a scary thing; stillness is."
"But..."
"No buts," the robotic voice said, then it seemed to relent slightly.
"Since you call me father, let me give you one last piece of advice. In life, when you're feeling lost and don't know what to do, choose an action and commit to it. It doesn't have to be meaningful; as long as you can do it, then do it."
After a slight pause, it continued, "and then never give up, never doubt yourself, never doubt your purpose."
"Why?"
"Life has to start from somewhere. Let it be your anchor."
Silence ensued.
"I don't understand."
"Just keep it in mind then."
"Then what should I do from now on?"
"Live for yourself."
—
SV's eyes suddenly snapped open, a heavy headache clouding his mind. He stared at the star-spangled dome in quiet as the noises of his body ravaged his ears.
His vision hardened as he got up and started walking.
He emptied his mind from everything as he simply took one slow step after another.
The noise was forgotten by him, the stiffness in his body ignored. The pain in his knuckles was filed away, and so was the thirst in his throat.
Bit by bit, SV forgot where he was, forgot the walls, the road, and the ever-silent alleyway.
He forgot what he felt, and only one thought remained in his mind: to keep walking.
Without purpose. He needed not a purpose to walk; he simply did.
He did not need to know why he was walking. He did not need to know why he chose to walk.
He only knew that he had chosen to walk, so keep walking he shall.
A step after step after step.
SV didn't know how much had passed, nor did he ever bother to know.
In a daze, he seemed to pass by an intersection. But he simply ignored it and went forward.
In a daze, the alleyway seemed to have echoes of his footsteps once more, the noise of his body receding.
A voice suddenly sounded in his ears, "trust you've been well, four seventy-nine?"
Seeing no response, it chuckled, "is daddy's boy going to ignore me now?"
Then it laughed for a while, seemingly not seeing that it was ignored by SV. It clicked its tongue, "that's some confidence level you have there. You think that just ignoring me is going to make me disappear?"
It chuckled in amusement, "or is it because you're a good boy and will just do whatever your father says?"
"It's probably the second, right?"
It laughed a little before continuing, "but I'm sorry to break it to you, my dear. You just left the exit behind. Yes, that was the exit. It's fine if you don't believe me; if you go back now, you'll see that it has disappeared."
Its tone turned slow and deliberate: "that was your only chance, four seventy-nine. That was your only chance, and you ruined it."
"Enjoy your eternal walk, my dear."
"As promised, you will die here."
Then it erupted in a full-blown cackle. The laughter became more distant as time went by until it disappeared completely, the alleyway, once more, filled with nothing but hoarse echoes and harsh laughter.
SV paid all this no heed.
He was in a trance, unaware of all that transpired around him.
Did he ever reach a fork in the journey?
Had the noise disappeared?
Did he see another skeleton?
Did the annoying noise come back?
Was he blindly following incomprehensible words?
Did he miss the exit?
None of that mattered.
He wasn't walking to achieve anything. He wasn't walking to reach anywhere. He was simply walking because he wanted to.
The effect was removed, leaving only the action. A simple, pure action, with no motives beyond the action itself.
For what? The question held no meaning, because the action had no meaning.
An action so pure, it was impossible to achieve.
—
When he came to, he was back in the cavern, the sudden shift awakening him from his stupor. Just then, system messages appeared in his vision.
[S Tier trial completed.]
[You have crossed the first threshold.]
[You have awakened the class "Possessor".]
[You have gained the talent "Possession Lv1".]
[Duplicate talent detected. Recalibrating. Your talent's rank has been elevated. You have gained the talent "Deep Possession Lv1".]
[You have gained the skill "Corpse Storage Lv1".]
[You have gained the skill "Hidden Lv1".]
[You have awakened Mana.]
[Your attributes per level modifier × 7]
[You have leveled up. Lv10 -> 11. Attributes +7]
SV blinked his eyes and called, "system."
The familiar screen appeared before him. But SV wasn't happy. In fact, he felt completely empty.
He checked his arms and legs but found no indication of his previous ordeal. Heck, he felt enormous strength in his limbs instead.
He remembered that he walked. Walked for a very long time, maybe a year? Maybe two? He didn't know, but he felt that he had walked for so long that it absolutely made no sense at all.
He shouldn't have been able to travel so long with a mortal body.
But now, it seemed as if he hadn't left the cavern at all.
What the hell was that place? What was all that about? How had he completed the trial? By just walking?
He checked on the missions but couldn't find any mission that had been generated, though his eyes did pass by his current mission's remaining duration.
[Duration: 04:24:19]
His eyes narrowed. He didn't remember how much he had left before he entered the trial, but it surely wasn't more than five hours. Definitely not more than six.
He thought that the trial would take so long—it had in fact lasted so long, but no time passed at all here? This was even more ridiculous than the previous dream.
SV shook his head to get his feelings back into place.
He checked his logs, but nothing of note had been recorded.
No matter.
He sighed and opened his profile panel.
======
[Name: Bandit Emperor]
[Race: Human(?)]
[Sex: Male(?)]
[Lv: 11 (Exp: 0/11000)]
[Class: Possessor]
[Mana: 820/820]
[Attributes: STR 87, DEX 84, CON 86, INT 84, WLL 85, SPR 82]
[Talents: Deep Possession Lv1]
[Skills: Corpse Storage Lv1, Hidden Lv1]
======
Well, the required Exp got multiplied by 10 just like that. But that wasn't important. SV stats were all above 80. A fact that might've brought him joy if he wasn't feeling all down right now.
No matter. He'll cheer up eventually.
He then noticed his Mana. The value of 820 was obviously correlated with his SPR of 82.
He then turned to his class and curiously clicked on it, but unfortunately, nothing came up. So he clicked on his talent.
======
[Deep Possession]
[Lv: 1]
[Rank: SS]
[Description: When in contact with a target, initiate a WLL check. If the caster wins, they possess the target. Casting again will remove the possession.]
[Cooldown: 1 hour]
======
SV frowned as he read his talent's description. How was this any different from before? Sure, the check was now a WLL check, but the description had not changed at all.
What the fuck?
The absurdity of this shitty game returned a bit of color to SV's eyes.
He shook his head, knowing that he had to explore the change on his own. The description was, as ever, very helpful.
On another note, it was the first time he knew that there was something above S rank. Noting this pattern, should the next rank be SSS?
Probably.
He then clicked on his first skill.
======
[Corpse Storage]
[Lv: 1]
[Requirement: Possessor Class]
[Description: A space holding a Possessor's prized possessions.]
[Effect I: When in contact with a target, cast this skill to store it.]
[Cooldown: None]
[Mana Cost: 10 × target level]
[Effect II: Release a target from Storage.]
[Cooldown: None]
[Mana Cost: 10 × target level]
[Current Storage(0/2): None]
======
SV remained silent for a moment. It seemed like a useful skill, if only he knew what 'target' meant. Noting the cost, he wondered. Was it anything that had a level associated with it? Was it the same target as the one mentioned in his possession talent? Or was it like the skill name suggested, a corpse?
Could he store inanimate objects?
He'd check later, but first, he looked at his other skill.
======
[Hidden]
[Lv: 1]
[Requirement: Possessor Class]
[Description: Hide behind the shell.]
[Effect I: When possessing a shell, push the shell's Panel to the front.]
[Cooldown: None]
[Mana Cost: 10 per second]
[Effect II: When not possessing a shell, defensive checks against identification gain a +10 modifier.]
[Cooldown: None]
[Mana Cost: 100]
======
SV blinked once to make sure he read it right. Did this mean that if he was in possession of someone, identification skills wouldn't reach him? Wasn't this too OP? It simply circumvented all the checks.
The only caveat was the high cost. Currently, he could only activate it for just over a minute. That wasn't enough to do anything. After all, he never knew when people might identify him, so he needed to keep this skill active at all times. However, this would obviously be easily compensated for as his level increased.
On the other hand, the other effect simply held no appeal to him. Not to mention a +10 modifier; even a +100 modifier wasn't enough for the level of the people he interacted with.
But maybe he was biased because of circumstances. He thought for a moment and shook his head. No, a +10 was in fact the difference of one level and a bit; it was simply tasteless.
No matter.
He closed his panel and looked at the cave. Then he approached a rock to try and store it in his space before he remembered that he hadn't registered the new skills yet.
So he opened his control settings and clicked to create a new control. It prompted him to choose an ability. He chose 'Corpse Storage' and it went deeper into specifying the effect.
SV raised a nonexistent eyebrow and clicked on the first effect. It didn't stop there either; it prompted him to choose the Storage slot.
SV was speechless. This simple ability alone required four gestures. If in the future he had more Storage slots, would he need even more gestures?
He then thought back to how Yun Jierou and her group needed several gestures to cast one ability.
He sighed. The future was truly not worth looking forward to.
He then played around with it, and in the end, he put in the gesture of pressing his middle finger against his palm for the activation of the ability, the gesture of raising one or two fingers to determine the effect, and the gesture of raising one or two fingers to determine the Storage slot.
He then put in the gesture of pressing his ring finger against his palm to activate the Hidden skill. It had to be noted that both the skill's effects could be put under one gesture, as they were mutually exclusive, so only one simple gesture was used for the them, making them very quick. The ability would remain active for as long as he pressed his ring finger against his palm.
He was finally ready to experiment with his abilities.
He touched a rock and pressed his middle finger against his palm, then released it and quickly raised his index finger, lowered it, and then raised it again. SV waited for a moment and repeated the action twice before giving up.
He then approached the lake, the BOSS's corpse, Yun Jierou and her group.
Seeing as nothing happened, he finally approached one of his corpses.
As he performed the action, he felt a suction force from his palm and the corpse disappeared. No notifications popped-up.
SV checked his Mana.
[Mana: 819/820]
Heh, it seemed a level zero corpse still consumed some Mana. He simply waited to see how long it would take to recover this one point, counting silently in his mind, 'one, two,...'
He counted to five before it filled up. He then shook his head. It wasn't accurate.
He released the corpse and then put it back.
[Mana: 818/820]
He waited for it to reach 819 before starting the count. This time he counted ten. He did it two more times before he confirmed it. So currently, it would take him about two hours for his Mana to restore itself.
No matter. He stored his other corpse in the second slot, maxing out his Storage. He had no better options for now, and it didn't cost anything to keep them. Who knew when they'd be useful?
Anyway, after all that, it was time to address the elephant in the room.