Darkness.
Silence.
A bone-chilling darkness, a deathly silence that seemed capable of freezing even the soul.
Lin Mo felt like a speck of dust thrown into the endless cosmos, losing time and space. All he could feel was the despair of constantly sinking, constantly falling.
"Is it… really over like this?"
A hint of bitterness welled up in his heart.
Three months of desperate effort, all his sweat and hopes, only to be met with a system bug? Kicked out directly without even a chance to enter the game?
He was unwilling!
Only he knew how every single banknote was saved from between his teeth, how every dawn was endured through exhaustion. This wasn't just a game helmet; this was a gamble where he had staked everything!
"Why?!"
A suppressed rage in his heart suddenly erupted, and Lin Mo's consciousness let out a silent roar in the darkness.
Perhaps his unwillingness touched some unknown mechanism. Just as he was about to be completely swallowed by the darkness, a faint gray light abruptly lit up at the end of the void.
The light was extremely dim, like a flickering candle in the wind, threatening to extinguish at any moment.
But for Lin Mo, who was in despair, this was his only hope.
His consciousness instinctively rushed towards that gray light.
"…System repairing…"
"…Talent module reconstructing…"
"…Player 'Lin Mo' detected with missing talent, forced allocation in progress…"
The intermittent system notification, as if from a bad signal, sounded again. This time, the voice was filled with a mechanical, emotionless chill.
The darkness before Lin Mo receded like a tide, and the pure white space reappeared.
However, the space was no longer stable. The surrounding walls were covered with spiderweb-like cracks, and countless scrambled data streams flickered wildly within the cracks, as if it could completely collapse at any moment.
In the center of the space, there were no longer five radiant cards, but only a single, desolate, completely gray card suspended there.
The card had no luster, its edges were even somewhat tattered, and it was etched with a blurry, eerie rune that seemed to be made of a single drop of ink. It floated there silently, exuding an aura of ominousness and decay.
"Talent allocation complete."
"Congratulations, player 'Lin Mo', you have acquired the unique talent –"
The system notification seemed to stutter here, as if even it was confused by the outcome.
After a brief pause, a name that made Lin Mo feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave finally appeared before him.
"Endless Toxin Source."
"Toxin?"
Lin Mo was stunned.
In the official class descriptions of "Epoch," the poison element was universally recognized as the absolute bottom-tier faction, without exception.
Low damage, slow to develop, weak burst, no crowd control – it was practically useless except for applying a negligible continuous damage-over-time effect to monsters. In the early stages, which emphasized efficiency and burst damage, poison-type classes were synonymous with being a team burden; even dogs wouldn't play them.
And his talent was actually related to "poison"?
Lin Mo's heart sank once more. He clung to a final shred of hope and clicked on the detailed description of the talent.
"Endless Toxin Source"
"Level: ??? (Unknown)"
"Type: Unique Passive Talent"
"Effect: Your poison damage can stack infinitely."
"Initial Effect: The poison you apply deals 1 damage per second to the target, lasting 5 seconds. This effect can stack a maximum of 3 layers."
That was it.
The description was only a few short lines, outrageously simple.
No flowery words, no complex mechanics, and certainly no descriptions of world-shattering potential.
"Infinite stacking…" Lin Mo chewed on these four words, yet felt no power whatsoever.
A maximum of 3 layers, 1 damage per second, lasting 5 seconds.
What kind of concept was this?
This meant that even if he tried his best to fully stack the poison, he could only deal (1+2+3) * 5 = 30 total damage to a single target within 5 seconds?
This damage probably wouldn't even break the defense of the weakest slime in the beginner village!
What kind of god-tier talent was this? This was simply the fighter jet of trash!
"It's over…"
Lin Mo's vision went dark, and he almost fainted.
He would rather the system bug out completely and kick him out of the game than give him such a despair-inducing "consolation prize."
Just then, a guiding spirit wearing a white dress and with a pair of translucent wings on her back appeared out of thin air before him.
She was very cute, like a delicate porcelain doll, but at this moment, the look in her eyes as she gazed at Lin Mo was filled with undisguised sympathy and pity.
"Alas, poor adventurer, it seems the system malfunction just now caused irreversible effects on you."
The little sprite flew around Lin Mo, shaking her head and sighing, "To compensate you, the system found this abandoned talent for you from the deepest layers of the data ruins… Hmm, although it does seem… rather useless, it's better than nothing, right?"
Her voice was clear and pleasant, but her words were like a knife, plunging fiercely into Lin Mo's heart.
Even NPCs are starting to pity me?
Lin Mo's mouth twitched, unable to utter a single word.
"Alright, don't be too sad." The guiding sprite seemed to realize her words were a bit hurtful and quickly comforted him, "The world of 'Epoch' is full of miracles. Who knows, maybe you'll encounter some serendipity in the future that allows you to re-roll this talent? I sincerely wish you the best."
Re-roll?
Lin Mo gave a bitter smile. The official website clearly stated that talents were bound to the soul and could not be changed for life.
This so-called blessing was merely the final straw that broke the camel's back.
"Talent bound. Transferring you to Beginner Village No. 9527…"
"Transfer countdown: 10, 9, 8…"
As the countdown began, Lin Mo's body gradually became transparent.
Beyond the shattered spatial barriers, countless other players' figures vaguely appeared. They seemed to have also completed their talent extraction, and their faces were filled with excitement and anticipation.
"Hahaha! S-rank talent [Holy Light Affinity]! I am indeed the chosen one!"
"A-rank [Gust Step], not bad, a top-tier talent for an assassin class!"
"B-rank [Powerful Throw], it's alright, should be strong with a hunter."
Excited boasts and satisfied discussions drifted through the blurry space, forming a stark contrast with Lin Mo's silence.
He was like a pathetic wretch forgotten by the world in a corner, silently watching others' revelry.
"Wait, look at that person! Why is his talent card gray?"
"Holy cow, is that real? There are gray talents? Is that F-rank?"
"I'm dying of laughter. He drew a trash talent right at the start. Did this guy offend the God of Games or something?"
"ID is Lin Mo? Note it down. If you see him in the game later, stay far away, don't get infected by his bad luck."
Gleeful glances shot over, mixed with undisguised ridicule.
Lin Mo subconsciously clenched his fists, his fingernails digging deep into his palms.
Humiliation, anger, unwillingness… all sorts of emotions churned in his chest, almost consuming his sanity.
Why?
Why do others all have dazzlingly powerful talents, while I only have a piece of trash picked up by the system from a garbage heap?
Why do I, who put in a hundred times more effort than others, have to get the worst start?
This isn't fair!
"Boom—"
Just as the countdown was about to hit zero, a flash of lightning seemed to strike Lin Mo's mind, dispelling all negative emotions.
He abruptly raised his head, staring intently at the gray talent card.
No!
Calm down! Lin Mo, you must calm down!
Anger and complaints solve nothing. Giving up now would be equivalent to completely wasting those three months of effort!
He forced himself into a state of absolute rational thinking, a precious survival skill he had honed through countless struggles at the bottom of society.
"Endless Toxin Source"… "Unique Passive Talent"… "Your poison damage can stack infinitely"… "Unique…" Lin Mo's pupils suddenly contracted.
In the lore of "Epoch," only S-rank and a very few special A-rank talents were prefixed with "Unique"! This meant that he was the only person on the entire server to possess this talent!
Would the system designate a truly "trash" talent as "unique"?
And… "infinite stacking"!
The initial effect was indeed pitifully weak, with a maximum of 3 layers.
However, this was only the "initial" effect!
Did this mean that as his level increased, or by fulfilling certain special conditions, this layer limit could be broken?
If… if this limit truly could be broken, what terrifying potential would those four words, "infinite stacking," hold?
Stacking a hundred layers, a thousand layers, ten thousand layers?
When the toxins stacked to a degree capable of ignoring defenses and corroding rules, what kind of world-destroying sight would that be?
A crazy thought, like a raging wildfire, instantly occupied Lin Mo's entire mind.
This might not be a trash talent.
This might be a truly "god-tier" talent that needed to be unlocked in a special way!
Its lower limit was extremely low, down to the dust; but its upper limit, perhaps, was also extremely high, so high… that there was no end!
"…3, 2, 1, transfer starting!"
A flash of white light, and Lin Mo's figure completely vanished from the creation space.
The mocking and discussing voices were also completely cut off.
When Lin Mo opened his eyes again, a fresh scent of grass and trees wafted over him.
Before him was a scene full of vitality: an ancient village, a babbling brook, distant rolling green mountains, and players in beginner cloth armor bustling around him.
This was the world of "Epoch."
Lin Mo looked down at his empty hands, then slowly clenched them.
The stinging pain from his fingernails digging into his palms was incredibly real.
He took a deep breath, and all the humiliation and unwillingness in his chest now transformed into an unprecedented calmness and determination.
"Zhao Kai… and all those who mocked me…"
"You all just wait."
"I will let all of you know who the real trash is!"
Flames burned fiercely in the young man's eyes.
A legend belonging to the God of Poison quietly began at this moment.