Chapter 36 — Breaking the Plateau
Three days had passed since Seth reached the novice rank.
The night was cool, quiet—almost too quiet. A blanket of stars shimmered overhead, their light slipping through the shattered roof of a ruined house. Dust motes drifted lazily in the beams, catching the faint glow of the golden panel hovering before Seth's eyes.
He sat cross-legged in the center of the room, silent and still, his gaze fixed on the familiar screen.
Everything looked the same.
His saturation: 0%.
His rank: Novice.
His SP, however, had climbed past seven hundred.
Not much else had changed.
Seth exhaled quietly, lowering his gaze. It wasn't that he hadn't tried. He'd searched, hunted, and waited for days, but all novice-ranked creatures were buried deep within the massive horde surrounding the Waterhouse. Not even one had wandered close enough for him to pick off.
He'd thought of forcing his way through—but that idea had died the moment it was born.
This wasn't some movie where the hero could take on an army and emerge unscathed. Here, fatigue was real. Wounds bled. Muscles tore. Even with his advantage, he'd be crushed by sheer numbers before he could take down a fraction of them.
No… for now, patience was the only way forward.
Chewing on a strip of dried meat from the morning, Seth leaned back against the cracked wall and muttered, "This can't go on."
His voice carried a hint of irritation as his eyes flicked toward the still-unchanged saturation bar.
"I thought I'd at least be level two by now."
He bit down harder than necessary, the sound of tearing meat echoing faintly in the room.
Then, mid-bite, he froze. His brows furrowed, and slowly—almost comically—his expression shifted. His lips curved upward, eyes brightening with a flicker of inspiration.
"That's it."
A grin broke out, wide and unrestrained.
"If I can't level up yet…" he whispered, chuckling to himself, "then I'll just grow strong enough to take them all on anyway."
His laugh echoed softly through the empty house, the kind that came from the thrill of discovery—and maybe a touch of madness.
That was the start of a new cycle.
Eat. Hunt. Sleep. Repeat.
Seth gave himself to the rhythm completely. Days blurred together as he prowled through the ruins and forests, cutting down beasts with precision and speed. Blood splattered stone, fangs cracked under his blade, and his sword arm grew heavier with each swing.
At first, the beasts were many. Then, they grew fewer. By the end of the week, their numbers had thinned drastically. The once-roaring town filled with beasts was eerily still, the silence disturbed only by the flutter of birds and the whisper of leaves in the wind.
But Seth's SP had skyrocketed.
Hunting between one hundred and seventy points daily, he'd collected more than a thousand in a week.
Adding it to his earlier reserves brought the total to 1,784.3 SP.
He stood that morning beneath a cloudless sky, the sun spilling gold across the crumbling rooftops. Sweat clung to his neck, his breathing steady and strong.
He opened his system, eyes scanning the glowing numbers. "Alright," he murmured, cracking his knuckles. "Time for the next step."
Without hesitation, he began allocating points. Seventeen in total—each worth a hundred SP. All of them went straight into Physique.
The moment he confirmed, his body convulsed.
Power surged through his veins like wildfire, burning hot, raw, alive. His muscles tightened, bones creaked, veins bulged. Every heartbeat thundered in his ears. The pressure was immense—so immense that the cracked ground beneath him gave way.
With a thunderous crack, the floor collapsed, sending Seth crashing to the level below.
He landed lightly, feet sinking into the dirt, dust exploding outward in a hazy cloud. His knees didn't even bend.
For a moment, he just stood there—then he looked down at his hands.
They trembled slightly, not from weakness, but from the raw intensity of the power coursing through them.
His physique had reached forty-four points.
It was a terrifying number.
He clenched his fist and felt the air compress faintly around it. Even without using energy, the sheer density of his strength displayed the air immediately around his knuckles.
A grin tugged at his lips.
"If I had to compare…" he muttered, "one point now gives me as much as one and a half before when I was an initiate."
He straightened, rolling his shoulders experimentally. The building groaned ominously around him, hairline cracks spiderwebbing up the walls.
"Shit," he sighed, glancing at the jagged hole above. "There goes my house."
He turned to leave—then paused.
Ting. Ting. Ting.
The sound drew his eyes upward. From the collapsed ceiling above, a small cascade of shimmering crystals fell—beast cores, glinting faintly in the dim light.
They hit the ground one after another, forming a neat little pile.
Seth blinked, recognizing them immediately. The pile had grown since the last time—hundreds of cores, each one glowing faintly blue.
All initiate level nines. He had long discarded the weaker ones.
"Well," he murmured, crouching down. "You're still useful."
A thought came to him. Instead of picking them up one by one as he always did, he extended one hand over the mound and closed his eyes.
A soft hum filled the air.
The cores pulsed once—twice—then their glow began to fade.
A flood of energy poured into Seth's body, rushing up his arms like a tidal wave before converging at his core. He felt it swirl violently inside him, merging seamlessly with his saturation energy.
The golden bar on his panel twitched upward. 2%
When the light faded, the once-bright crystals had turned dull and gray, their essence completely drained.
Seth opened his eyes slowly, a small, satisfied smile curving his lips.
"So it's possible to absorb multiple cores at once," he mused. "Good to know."
That would save him a lot of time.
Straightening, he stretched his shoulders and rolled his neck. His body felt different again—more alive, more ready.
The rest of the town beyond the ruin was waiting, filled with the scent of blood and earth.
He glanced toward the faint outline of the Waterhouse in the distance, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Time to take it up a notch," he said softly. "Today… I hunt a novice."
The words hung in the air like a promise—quiet, steady, and absolute.
Then, with a single step, he vanished into the distance.