John ran for a full three hours before finally stopping on a stretch of open plain outside Novice Village.
He swept his gaze across the area, making sure there was no one in sight. Only then did he take out the Class Change Scroll.
Under the sunlight, the SSS-grade Class Change Scroll shone with an even more dazzling brilliance.
"So this really belongs to me…"
John swallowed hard, as if he were still trapped in a dream.
To avoid any accidents, he immediately opened the scroll and used it.
Ding!
The scroll burst into a stream of seven-colored light that shot into his body.
In an instant, countless rainbow-colored system prompts exploded before his eyes.
They almost completely filled his vision.
[Class change complete. All experience stored in the experience pool has been returned.]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 50!]
A flood of golden light erupted from John's body as level-up effects flashed one after another.
In a single leap, he shot from Level 30 all the way to Level 50.
And after that came an endless stream of class change notifications.
[Congratulations! You have unlocked the SSS-grade class: Chrono Assassin!]
[Chrono Assassin] (SSS Grade)
[Talent 1: Unlocks 999 exclusive inventory slots. Each slot can hold up to 999 items of the same type!]
[Talent 2: Gain 20 free attribute points per level. (Ordinary classes gain only 5.)]
[Talent 3: All four core attributes synchronize with Agility. When Agility increases, the other attributes increase as well!]
[Talent 4: Restores 2% of maximum HP whenever you kill any target!]
[Talent 5: Enter an absolutely silent state while moving, and ignore all falling damage!]
[Talent 6: Attack speed increases by 50% whenever any attack is launched!]
John stared blankly at the prompts, completely stunned.
As expected of an SSS-grade class. It came with six talents right from the start.
And every single one of them was outrageously overpowered.
If even one of these talents were given to someone else, it would be enough to create an S-grade class.
Not to mention Talent 3 alone.
As long as he invested in Agility, the other three major stats would rise along with it.
That would drastically reduce the number of free attribute points he had to spend elsewhere.
It would push an assassin's Agility growth efficiency to the absolute extreme.
But even that wasn't the limit.
John took a deep breath, suppressing his excitement as he opened the modification panel.
"System, modify it!"
He started with Talent 1.
Nine hundred ninety-nine inventory slots still felt too few.
More.
He kept increasing it.
One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand...
Only after raising it all the way to 3,999 did John finally stop.
It wasn't that he didn't want to keep going.
It was that he had suddenly realized there didn't seem to be any upper limit at all.
John's eyes widened, and he immediately began experimenting with the other talent values.
For Talent 2, the free attribute points per level were changed from 20 to 199.
Talent 3 had no numerical value attached to its stat synchronization effect, so there was nothing to modify.
Talent 4 restored 2% HP per kill—he changed that to 100% HP restored per kill.
Talent 5 also had no numeric value, so there was no need to touch it.
As for Talent 6, he kept increasing the 50% attack speed bonus until he finally set it at 200%.
By the time he reached the end, even John himself was starting to feel shocked.
If he had enough system points, he would have wanted to keep stacking everything even further.
John carefully selected Confirm.
The moment he saw the numerical values in all six talents successfully altered, his mind went blank.
He froze there for a long while before finally coming back to himself.
"T-This… this is the potential of an SSS-grade class?"
With numbers like these, "overpowered" wasn't even enough to describe it anymore.
Once all six modified talents were stacked together, it was no different from invincibility.
More importantly—
To his utter disbelief, John discovered that after confirming the changes, the ± signs behind the numerical values in those talent descriptions were still there.
Which meant that even after modifying them once, as long as he had enough system points, he could keep modifying them again.
Infinitely.
No time limit. No location limit.
Only one restriction: system points.
SSS-grade class. Unlimited modification.
"That's insane…"
John stared at the numbers for a long time before finally forcing out those words.
He had never imagined that he could one day possess stats this absurd.
Unfortunately, the major wars between the different Zones had not yet begun.
Otherwise, he truly wanted the guilds that had humiliated him in his previous life to see with their own eyes—
what a real gap looked like.
Just as John was still immersed in the overwhelming power of his new, near-invincible stats, another peal of thunder suddenly cracked across the sky.
That familiar divine voice rang out once more, spreading through the entire server.
[Server-wide Announcement: Congratulations to Zone 5 for being the first to conquer the A-grade dungeon "Catacomb Complex"!
The five major Zones have now unlocked the World Channel. All players may now freely speak in the World Channel!]
[Server-wide Announcement: Power Ranking has been activated!
The total combat power of all players in each Zone will be ranked. Settlement will occur in 2 years.
All players in the Zone ranked first will receive a special reward!]
[Special Reward: All players in the strongest Zone may bring everything they possess in the game back to reality.
(For the other four Zones, only the single strongest player will receive this reward.)]
[The strongest player among all five Zones will receive one additional wish.]
As soon as the announcement ended, all players saw a crimson countdown appear in the sky.
[17519:59:59]
Seventeen thousand five hundred twenty hours.
Converted, that was exactly 730 days.
Precisely two years.
When the two-year countdown ended, rewards would be distributed based on the rankings.
And every player in the top-ranked Zone would receive the final reward.
Before the players had even managed to recover from that shock, a second wave of announcements descended.
[Server-wide Announcement: Zone 5 has become the first server to reach 5% progression!
Reward triggered — World-Level Quest!]
[World-Level Quest: Defend Novice Village]
[Quest Details: A special monster tide will descend upon Zone 5 in 7 days.
At that time, all players in Zone 5 will be forcibly teleported to Novice Village!]
[During the quest, special reward bonuses and death penalties will be activated!]
[Reward Bonus: EXP gained from killing monsters +200%.
Drop rate for B-grade or higher equipment and items +50%.
During the event, killing monsters of different levels will grant different amounts of Reputation.
(The lowest-level monsters grant 5 Reputation.)]
[Death Penalty: If you die during the monster tide, you cannot respawn for 3 days.
One random piece of equipment will be destroyed, and your Reputation will be reduced by 50%!]
Two back-to-back global announcements.
The entire server fell into a brief, stunned silence.
Then it exploded.
Especially the players of Zone 5.
Because they had been the first to receive a world-level quest, which was equivalent to getting an early growth opportunity ahead of everyone else.
In an instant, Zone 5 players flooded the World Channel.
[Bick] (Zone 5): "Holy crap, holy crap! Boss John is insane! He straight-up pushed our Zone 5 to first place!"
[X] (Zone 5): "Hasn't the server only been open for a short while? And our Boss John already cleared an A-grade dungeon.
Tsk, tsk, tsk… I honestly can't see how the other Zones are supposed to compete with us."
[Suna] (Zone 2): "Hmph. Aren't you just relying on one strong player to carry you?
And now all you leeches are acting all smug?"
[Aike] (Zone 5): "Ohhh, what's this? Already getting salty?
Why don't you go find someone who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Boss John first?
Riding his coattails is our biggest advantage, and Boss John is definitely going to lead us in crushing every single one of your Zones!"
The World Channel was almost completely dominated by players from Zone 5.
At this moment, they were overjoyed beyond measure.
Their admiration for John had reached its peak.
Nearly every one of them wanted nothing more than to cling tightly to this top-tier powerhouse's thigh.