The moment Dex uttered the word "Status," the air before him shivered with a faint vibration. From nothing, a translucent screen materialised, glowing with a dim neon-blue light, floating in the air an arm's length from his face. The letters and numbers were written in the language of Mana, but his mind-as a summoned soul and a Reader-translated them instantly.
Dex stared at the screen and felt as though someone had upended a bucket of ice-cold water directly over his head.
--- STATUS SCREEN ---
Name : Dex Williams
Overall Rank : E - Level of Absolute Weakness
Strength : E - Barely capable of wielding a standard sword for an extended period
Endurance : E- - Energy recovery rate is near-zero
Intelligence : C - The sole elevated attribute, courtesy of the fused Reader's soul
Mana Capacity : E - Sufficient for two basic-level spells before collapse
Luck : F - Catastrophic - magnet for beasts and misfortune
Innate Elements: [Water] [Earth]
Class / Path : [Swordsman - Level 1]
"Rank E..." Dex laughed with hollow bitterness, the dry echo of it bouncing off the cave's cramped walls. "And not even a respectable E-an E with negative endurance and catastrophic Luck. I am literally the weakest creature in this forest that still possesses a Mana Core. I am a light snack. An appetiser for the least threatening goblin or wolf in the Danger Zone."
He began dissecting the numbers with the mindset of a veteran gamer who found himself forced to play through the worst character build imaginable. Strength and Endurance were in the abyss, which meant that direct combat and physical close-quarters engagement were a death sentence, pure and simple. His Rank C Intelligence was his only weapon-and it was precisely this attribute that had enabled him to absorb complex information and execute the tactical planning he had used to kill the Shadow Wolf.
But what truly ignited his fury was the line that read: Luck - F (Catastrophic).
"This is the original author's curse," Dex thought with seething resentment. "Dex Williams was designed to be pitiable. Catastrophic Luck means that if I face a fork in the road, I will unfailingly choose the path that leads through a minefield. That is why a Rank D beast appeared on the outermost, supposedly safe fringes of this forest!"
As for his innate elements-they were a disappointment by any combat-novel standard. Water and Earth. Excellent elements for defence, for slow regeneration, and for environmental manipulation, but utterly devoid of the explosive force and raw destructive capacity of Fire or Lightning, the elements wielded by the story's actual heroes. And his current class, Swordsman - Level 1, was a foolish choice made by the original Dex in a misguided attempt to imitate his father despite possessing a body wholly unsuited to the great sword.
"Despair solves nothing," Dex said aloud, and slapped both his cheeks hard with his open palms to jolt himself back to focus. He dismissed the Status screen with a wave of his hand, and the blue display dissolved into the air. "Knowledge is my true power. I possess a map of the hidden treasures in this world-and the secrets the author buried that no one has yet uncovered."
Reality was screaming in his face: he needed power, and fast. A qualitative leap in rank that would compress years of tedious conventional training that he simply did not have the time for. His father would die in fewer than sixty days, and entering the Danger Zone to search for Okonnor required him to be, at minimum, at peak Rank D or the beginning of Rank C.
Dex closed his eyes and submerged himself once more in his mental library-the memory palace. He combed through the margins, through the novel's supplementary chapters, through the author's scattered hints and asides.
"Something close... something that will give me immense energy compatible with my elements..."
Suddenly, his mud-caked face split open in a wide grin, and his eyes flew open and blazed with the gleam of triumph.
"The Lake of Silver Tears!"
He recalled a highly secret location mentioned as a passing geographical footnote in the novel. On the boundary line between the Safe Zone and the Danger Zone, on the eastern side of Falus Forest, there lay a mysterious lake that appeared perfectly ordinary and harmless to both the naked eye and to magical senses. Its waters were calm and emitted no threatening Mana whatsoever-which caused powerful beasts to disregard it entirely, and treasure-hunting adventurers to walk past its shores without a second glance.
But the novel had revealed a terrifying secret about this lake. In its unfathomable depths-concealed beneath an elaborate natural aquatic illusion-lay a network of submerged caverns. And in the deepest of those caverns, a legendary entity rested, one that had fallen in the ages long past during the War of the First Gods. This entity was a divine beast-and it would be his ticket to power.
"Because of the manner of its death-in a completely isolated environment," Dex analysed with mounting excitement, "its Mana Core never decomposed. It crystallised instead, transforming into a pure crystal of impossibly dense, concentrated energy. It is a forgotten experience capsule, waiting for whoever is bold enough to consume it."
In the original novel, the hero had stumbled upon this Core entirely by accident, when the lake dried up as an incidental consequence of a catastrophic battle nearby. But Dex knew its precise location right now. This Core carried enough energy to elevate his rank, purge the blocked Mana channels throughout his pampered noble body, and develop his muscular framework in record time.
"That Core is my true starting point. It is the key that will unlock the gates of the Danger Zone."
Dex rose to his feet, ignoring the screaming protest of his exhausted muscles. He had a clear objective now-and one that was actually achievable. He began to prepare himself methodically. He gathered his poisoned daggers and checked their edges for sharpness. He retrieved the violet Shadow Wolf Core, to be drawn upon for emergency Mana if the need arose. He checked his water flask, then collected a handful of basic medicinal herbs he had identified inside the cave.
He shouldered his leather pack and tightened the straps of his black clothing. He closed his grip around his primary dagger and felt the cold of the metal in his palm grant him a strange, unfamiliar confidence-a confidence that had never belonged to the original Dex, but to the man who had survived the worst that human life could offer, and had returned seeking retribution.
He stood at the cave entrance and shouldered the boulder aside to open a passage. He turned one last time and looked back into the cave's inner darkness-the darkness that had sheltered him through his first night. This filthy cave, with its reek of rot and its oppressive narrowness, had been the womb of his second birth. Here, he had made his decision to defy fate. Here, fear had died, and in its place cold determination had taken root.
"Wait for me, Father..." Dex whispered, and stepped out into the forest's faint light. "However long this forest demands of me, I will return with the Nectar. And wait for me, Okonnor... you will make a deal with me whether you wish it or not."
With steady steps and senses sharpened to their absolute limit, Dex set off eastward. He no longer moved like a frightened victim flinching at every shifting shadow. He moved like a seasoned hunter who knew his destination, who carried in his mind maps that had not yet been drawn-beginning his death-fraught journey toward the summit of the hierarchy in this mad, magnificent world.
The search for the Lake of Silver Tears had begun. And the true danger had not yet bared its teeth.