Alex died on a Tuesday, which felt rude for a day that ordinary.
Headlights. The scream of twisting metal. Weightlessness—then nothing.
He woke to cold earth and a sky split by two pale moons. Crimson clouds drifted like torn banners. Air that tasted of pine and iron filled his lungs. The soundscape was wrong: birds that clicked instead of chirped, leaves whispering in a language he didn't know.
"Am I… alive?"
Light flared. Lines of text hung in the air, crisp and impossible, as if projected on glass only he could see.
[UNLIMITED LEVELING SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[Host Identified: Alex Carter]
[Synchronization… 12% → 67% → 100%]
[Welcome, Host.]
He blinked. "No way."
A voice slid into his skull—neither male nor female, perfectly calm.
Welcome to Asterra, Host. This world operates on measurable progression. You have been bound to the Unlimited Leveling System. Progress has no cap.
"Unlimited?" Alex whispered. The word felt like heat under his skin.
New panes unfolded with elegant precision:
[Status]
Name: Alex Carter
Race: Human (Outsider)
Level: 1
Health: 100/100
Mana: 0/0
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Vitality: 5
Perception: 5
Luck: —
Traits: None
Skills: None
Titles: None
[Tutorial Quest: Survive the First Night]
Objective: Remain alive for 10:00 minutes.
Reward: +1 Level, Random Basic Skill
Penalty: Death
Timer: 10:00
The numbers were a joke. Strength five? He'd had bigger biceps senior year carrying grocery bags for his mom. But the word "Penalty" iced his spine.
A low growl trembled through the brush.
Red eyes bloomed between the trunks. A wolf padded into view—except wolves didn't wear armor made of interlocking black scales, and they definitely didn't leak a shadowy haze with each breath.
[Identify]
[Shadowfang Wolf — Feral | Rank: F]
Health: 60/60
Threat: Low
Tip: Soft tissue between eye and ear is vulnerable.
The voice wasn't smug; it was factual. The wolf's lips peeled back, showing fangs that could punch through bone. Ten minutes suddenly felt like a lifetime.
No weapon. No armor. Just a flat river stone near his hand.
Alex grabbed it.
The wolf lunged.
Time dilated into bright fragments: the snap of twigs under padded feet, the glint of star-sharp teeth, the angle of the skull. He didn't think—he moved. The stone arced.
The impact was wet and loud.
The wolf crashed past him, staggered, spun with a snarl. It leapt again.
Alex met it halfway. He drove the stone into the temple spot the pane had highlighted. The beast twitched once, then slumped with a gust of shadow like smoke extinguished by wind.
Silence.
Then the world rang with a bell he felt in his bones.
[Enemy Defeated: Shadowfang Wolf]
[Experience: +—]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
Alex staggered as power flooded his frame—hot, clean, intoxicating. The text kept climbing without stopping at a neat ding.
[New Level: 4]
Base Gain per Level: +10 to All Primary Attributes]
Strength: 5 → 35
Agility: 5 → 35
Vitality: 5 → 35
Perception: 5 → 35
Health: 100 → 400/400
Mana: 0 → 100/100
His vision sharpened until he could count the pores on a leaf. The night smelled layered: sap, damp soil, the coppery tang of blood. Muscles hummed like coiled wire.
"Unlimited…" He laughed once, shaky and breathless. "That was one kill."
Correction, the voice intoned. Unlimited accumulation. No caps. Rate of growth scales with actions taken. There are no bottlenecks.
"So every fight makes me stronger. Forever."
Yes.
The timer ticked on—09:04.
Branches cracked to his left. A second wolf slid into view, then a third behind it, jaws dripping shadow. Their eyes were not animal; they were hungry.
[Encounter Modifier: Blood-scent has attracted additional hostiles.]
[Kill Chain: 1] → 0:30 window for bonus.]
Alex snatched the dead wolf's jaw, wrenched until a fang snapped free. It bit his palm even severed, the tooth so sharp it shaved skin. He gripped it like a dagger.
The wolves came at once.
He was faster now. He ducked a lunge, slashed up—felt the fang glide through soft eye into brain. The second wolf's weight crashed into him; he rolled, used its momentum to throw it into a tree, then drove the fang under its ear as it scrambled.
Blood steamed in the cold.
[Enemy Defeated ×2]
[Kill Chain Bonus Achieved]
[LEVEL UP!] ×2
[New Level: 6]
Strength: 35 → 55
Agility: 35 → 55
Vitality: 35 → 55
Perception: 35 → 55
Health: 600/600
Mana: 150/150
The strength made him drunk. He flexed, and his bones felt denser. The forest felt slower.
Warning, the System said, almost gently. High-frequency leveling generates an energy signature. Predators and intelligent entities may notice.
"Meaning I'm a lighthouse," Alex muttered.
An accurate metaphor.
The timer: 07:28.
Distantly—faint at first—bells tolled. Not the deep peal of his "Level Up," but metallic and frantic. Human-made. He climbed a rise and saw, beyond the trees, the chiaroscuro of fire: a village at the edge of the forest, thatched roofs, a palisade fence, figures running with torches. Dark shapes moved against the light—more wolves, bigger, along with lanky silhouettes that walked like men but bent wrong, arms too long, faces too smooth.
People were screaming.
A new pane opened with a whisper of inevitability.
[Side Quest Unlocked: Ashvale at Dusk]
Objective: Prevent 10 civilian deaths (0/10).
Reward: +3 Levels, Random Skill (Rare), Reputation: Ashvale +50
Failure: Reputation: Ashvale -100, Possible Hostile Tag
Timer: 07:00
Alex hesitated. Stay put, survive ten minutes, the tutorial had said. But the bells were not numbers; they were terror.
"System," he said, swallowing, "Can I take both quests at once?"
Quests stack. Rewards stack. Penalties stack.
"Of course they do." He sprinted.
At Level 6, running was flying. He covered ground in blurs, trees strobing by. The palisade loomed. A gate hung crooked. Inside, a man in a leather cap swung a pitchfork at a wolf the size of a pony. The beast batted the tool aside and lunged for a woman cradling a crying child.
Alex didn't think. He vaulted the fence, landed hard enough to crack packed earth, and slammed the fang into the beast's throat.
The wolf convulsed. Warmth sprayed his arm. The woman shrieked, then stared at him with flat astonishment.
"Get inside!" he shouted. The words felt native—English?—but the villagers seemed to understand. They fled.
[Enemy Defeated] → [LEVEL UP!]
[New Level: 7]
[Ashvale Civilian Deaths Prevented: 1]
A boy of maybe ten gaped up from under a cart, eyes round, freckled face blood-streaked. "Outsider," he breathed, the word soft with wonder and fear.
Alex froze. "What did you call me?"
The boy flinched, shook his head, and pointed with trembling hands. "Behind!"
The lanky thing shambled from shadow to firelight. It was man-shaped, its skin stretched too tight over its skull, its mouth a vertical slit. It moved wrong, like a puppet with too few strings.
[Identify]
[Hollow — Aberrant | Rank: E]
Health: 120/120
Trait: Mana Drain (contact)
Tip: Avoid prolonged grapples. Sever cervical spine.
It hissed, a sound like air sucked through a reed, and lunged. Alex met it with a kick that folded its chest like cardboard. It bounced off a wall, and he was on it, driving the fang up and then—on instinct—twisting until the spine popped.
[Enemy Defeated]
[LEVEL UP!]
[New Level: 8]
[Ashvale Civilian Deaths Prevented: 2]
Something crashed to his right. A timber collapsed, sparks spiraling. A woman wailed a name over and over. The village had become a knot of motion: men with makeshift weapons, wolves with breathing shadow, Hollows drifting like smoke.
Alex moved through it like a storm. He didn't have techniques; he had raw speed and strength and the System's steady stream of tips: eyes, throat, joint, spine. He learned with his hands. Blood slicked his fingers. He lost the tooth, tore a shard of roof tile free and used that until it shattered, then a broken spear, then a pot lid he hammered into a wolf's face like a shield-bash.
[Enemy Defeated] ×8
[LEVEL UP!] ×8
[New Level: 16]
Strength: 135
Agility: 135
Vitality: 135
Perception: 135
Health: 1600/1600
Mana: 400/400
[Side Quest: Ashvale at Dusk — Civilian Deaths Prevented: 9/10]
Timer: 02:11
At some point he started laughing. Not because it was funny, but because he had never felt so capable. On Earth he had been average. Invisible. Here, with every motion, he rewrote the ceiling of what his body could be.
"Inside, all of you!" a bearded man bellowed, swinging a smith's hammer. He froze when he saw Alex fling a wolf through a stall. "Saints preserve—Outsider!"
There it was again. The word had weight. Eyes turned; a few widened with awe, others narrowed with distrust. Someone crossed themselves with two fingers and three taps.
Note: the System said. In Asterra, the term 'Outsider' carries cultural, religious, and political significance. Host visibility is increasing.
"Yeah, not now," Alex said between breaths.
The timer burned down: 01:59.
A thin scream cut the square. A girl had fallen on the steps of a small shrine—ankle twisted, a Hollow drifting toward her, long fingers flexing. Alex vaulted a dead cart horse and hit the creature so hard it split a wall with its body. He scooped the girl up—she weighed nothing at Level 16—and set her inside the shrine. A woman in a plain grey robe—priestess by the look—seized the door and stared at Alex with eyes sharp enough to cut.
"Blessings upon you… Outsider," she said, measuring the word, as if tasting it.
"Stay back," Alex said. "I've got it."
He turned—and air became pressure.
The hair on his arms rose. The fire guttered, then flared. Something heavy and old entered the street, each footfall a hammer on his sternum.
It stepped into view: a boar the size of a carriage, hide like slate, tusks curved and wet, eyes ember-red. Smoke curled from its nostrils. The earth listened when it walked.
[Identify]
[Ember-Tusk Boar — Elite | Rank: D]
Health: 1200/1200
Trait: Ignition (body temperature rises with rage)
Tip: Flank. Avoid head-on charge. Sever hamstring, then throat.
Villagers screamed, some dropping to their knees. The boar snorted, pawed the ground, and fixed on the shrine door—the scent of fear like spice.
"System," Alex said, mouth dry, "I can take that, right?"
Your statistics exceed a typical Rank D human combatant by several multiples, the voice said. However, mass, momentum, and trait synergy can overcome raw numbers. Recommendation: precision and environment manipulation. Also—
A new pane chimed.
[Main Tutorial Quest Update: Survive the First Night — Boss Variant Triggered]
Timer: 01:13
Reward (Boss Variant): +3 Levels, Skill Upgrade Token
Penalty: Death
The boar screamed steam and came like a landslide.
Alex moved.
He wasn't a martial artist. He didn't know forms. But his body understood distance and timing now, a metronome wired into his bones. He sidestepped as the boar thundered past, the wake of heat ripping at his clothes. The beast smashed through a market stall, turned with impossible speed, and charged again.
Alex ran toward it.
He hit the wall of a low house, took three steps up like a staircase, and launched. He landed on the boar's back, the heat making his skin prickle, grabbed a knot of bristles with one hand and hammered the base of its skull with the other. Bone met bone. Pain sang along his knuckles. The boar bucked, spine whipping like a thrown rope. Alex clung, teeth bared.
"Hamstring," he snarled to himself. He let go and fell—waited a fraction too long, the tusk nicked his thigh with a line of fire—then rolled under and drove both heels into the back of the boar's knee.
Something tore. The beast screamed. Its back end dropped, earth churning.
[Critical: Tendon Severed]
Alex surged to his feet, vaulted over a spray of sparks as the boar's hide brightened from slate to red, and went for the throat. He had no blade.
He grabbed a fallen spear from a dead guard's hand instead. The shaft was splintered. The head was bent.
It would have to do.
He planted, drove with every pound of new strength—felt the spearhead skid along thick hide, then bite, then grind. The boar reared. Heat blasted his face. The spear bent more, threatening to snap.
"Down," Alex grated. He shoved.
The spear punched through.
The boar collapsed in a sound like a felled tree, legs scrabbling, blood painting the dirt in dark fans. It thrashed once, twice, then stilled.
Silence rolled out from the corpse like a held breath finally released.
[Boss Defeated: Ember-Tusk Boar]
[LEVEL UP!] ×4
[New Level: 20]
Strength: 175
Agility: 175
Vitality: 175
Perception: 175
Health: 2000/2000
Mana: 500/500
[Reward: Skill Upgrade Token (Basic → Advanced)]
[Side Quest: Ashvale at Dusk — Success]
[Reward: +3 Levels, Random Skill (Rare), Reputation: Ashvale +50]
[LEVEL UP!] ×3 → Level 23
[New Skill Gained: Predator's Focus (Rare)]
Effect: Temporarily heightens perception and slows the user's sense of external time when targeting prey. Duration scales with Perception.
The village square filled with sound: sobbing, relief, prayers chanted in a language he did not know. The priestess stepped out of the shrine, her robe ash-dusted, her gaze steady as a blade's edge. She bowed—properly, deeply.
"On behalf of Ashvale," she said, voice carrying, "thank you."
People repeated the word thank, some with tears, some with suspicion, all with the particular intensity of those who had watched death approach and then retreat.
Alex straightened, panting, hands trembling with adrenaline. He looked down at himself—blood-smeared, smoke-streaked, a stranger in a hero costume he hadn't earned—and exhaled a laugh that almost broke.
"Guess I'm not average anymore."
Note, the System said. You have unlocked a Reputation ledger. Positive reputation grants access to services, information, and potential allies. Negative reputation may result in bounties.
"Good to know." He glanced at the priestess. "My name is Alex."
She studied him for a long heartbeat. "I am Mira of the Grey Shrine. You are an Outsider. This… complicates things."
"How?"
Mira's gaze flicked to the corpse of the boar, then to the towers of smoke on the horizon, farther out than the village. "Because Outsiders are miracles that rewrite the scales… and the Crown fears unbalanced scales."
Before he could ask, a trumpet sounded—clear, brassy, close. Armor clattered. A wedge of riders thundered up the road, their breastplates bearing a sigil of a sun pierced by a spear. They reined in hard enough to throw mud.
The leader lifted his visor. His eyes slid over Alex's blood-slick arms, the steaming boar, the kneeling villagers. His jaw tightened.
"By edict of Her Radiant Majesty," he declared, voice carrying the weight of memorized law, "all Outsiders are to present themselves for immediate conscription and containment. Resistance will be met with lethal force."
Every head pivoted to Alex.
A pane opened with the quiet inevitability of rain.
[Faction Interaction: The Solar Crown]
Standing: Neutral (0) → Wary (-10)
Reason: Unregistered Outsider manifesting in a restricted conflict zone.
Mira stepped half in front of him, a slight movement that was also a line in the dirt. Her voice was mild. "Captain, this Outsider just saved Ashvale."
The captain's mouth twitched. "So the ledger begins balanced. Good. Let us not weigh it down with poor choices."
His gauntleted hand lifted. Crossbows creaked as soldiers raised them, bolts catching firelight.
Alex felt the power in his limbs ready to uncoil. The System's voice was calm as ever.
New Quest Available: Choose Your Allegiance.
Options:
A) Submit to the Crown (Unknown Rewards/Penalties)
B) Resist and Escape (Stealth/Combat)
C) Negotiate via Reputation: Ashvale +50 (Requires success threshold)
Timer: 00:30
He looked at the villagers—the boy under the cart, the smith with the hammer, the woman clutching the child, Mira's steady eyes.
He smiled, teeth bright in the smoky dark.
"System," he said softly, "highlight the quickest way out of a kill box."
Route plotted.
Bolts notched. Horses snorted steam. The captain's hand hovered.
Alex shifted his weight, every nerve singing.
The moons overhead watched, pale and patient.