The house smelled of oil and string. I slept there like a thing kept in a jar—quiet, careful, ready to be used. The keys left a cold ring on the table. I pushed the leather packet into a drawer and used the first coins for a blunt knife and a pack that would not fall apart when wet. The rest waited like a promise.
The system reminded me of the clock.
[Daily Task Issued] — Complete 1000 push-ups, 1000 pull-ups, 1000 sit-ups, 10 km run. Reward: 1 Wheel Coupon.
I began with the push-ups. There is a mindless mercy to repetitive pain. Hands burn, breath burns, then the body learns the ledger of itself. The run at night through wet streets taught me space; the pull-ups taught me which fingers could carry weight. The panel watched, tall and patient.
[Daily Task Complete]
[Wheel Coupon Granted. Quantity: +1]
On the second morning I took my pack and left the city's smell for the cave mouths at the edge of the wild. Dungeons have mouths that breathe and teeth that close. They are not tidy places. The system sends missions, but it is the dungeon that decides the flavor of the test: a tide of beasts, a leaking mana vein, a ground that hates footsteps.
Monsters here are not neat. They come in shapes that want to bite. The city names them in ranks and categories; the list is not just play.
Monster Categories: Ordinary, Rare, Elite, Special, King, Overlord, Sovereign.
Monster Ranks: E, F → D, C → B, A → S → SS → SSS.
I learned early that a blade and hunger are not the same thing. A blade makes a kill. Hunger makes you take what you can and learn to use it. After every hunt the panel fed me numbers.
[Enemy Defeated. EXP Gained: +15]
[Current EXP: 124 / 200]
I carved meat with the blunt knife and wrapped hides to dry. Even that work gave something. The system said so.
[Level Up]
[Level: 2 → Attribute Points Gained: +3]
The screen showed Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Endurance, Mana. I touched the names like someone choosing brand names. I put two points into Strength and one into Agility. Hands that hold bone need bite first. Agility came second because speed keeps you alive.
A living thing gives more than flesh. Even small monsters feed the meter of me. The system is a game. I do the math and do the work.
Day three, a rare storm of mana rolled through the cave. The air hissed and rock bled blue. The cave walls sang and small things that crawled up the sides fell dead from sheer flux. My ears rang. I learned about mana storms the way a man learns about a knife—by being close when it opens.
[Environmental Hazard: Mana Flux — Damage Over Time Active]
[Suggestion: Seek shelter / Use Artifact]
There was no artifact. There was only moving and a rock that fell half a breath behind my shoulder. I dug my blade into the throat of a blind crawler and felt it taste like salt. The storm cut my run short. The system logged the fight.
[Enemy Defeated. EXP Gained: +40]
[Current EXP: 164 / 200]
I hit level three before the day ended. With level three, the system offered a list of passive boosts—faster stamina regen, minor wound seal. I took the regen. There are long nights ahead and one wants to wake.
The days blurred into numbers and meat. I learned the smell of rank. E and F beasts taste like old river mud. D and C have firmer flesh and better marrow. B and A walk like pride. The bigger things take longer and make the chest feel like a drumbeat.
On the fifth night I found an Elite den—beastmen of fang and stone that move like they own the dark. They were large, ugly, and full of fight. The first thing a hunter learns when he meets an Elite is that running is a poor plan. The second is that you must be a math machine with your blade.
We fought among stalagmites. Teeth nicked my arm. My shirt was a rag by dawn. I took one and then another. They fell like bad weather. The system counted.
[Enemy Defeated. EXP Gained: +220]
[Current EXP: 30 / 400]
[Drop: Rare Core x2, Beast Hide (Elite) x1]
The elite core shone in my palm like a heart. I put it in my pack and felt its heat at night. The cores are currency in these places—turn them in to markets, make potions, or feed the wheel.
Day six began with a hunt call in the dark. I moved like a man who has taught his feet the map. The wind held the scent of a Special—a rank higher than Elite, rarer and meaner. My breath shortened with hunger and something like prayer.
We met under a column of broken rock. The Special had too many limbs and teeth that knotted. Its eyes burned like a fever. It smelled of the deep dark and old power. I cut and danced and bled. It hit me in the shoulder and I saw stars. The system timed my dodge and named it for me.
[Combat Window: Successful Evasion — Critical Timing Detected]
I used Shadow Step and the reflexes together; movement became a single act. The blade slipped between ribs and the beast looked at me like a man who had been surprised to be held. It collapsed into my arms with a wet groan. The cave echoed.
[Enemy Defeated. EXP Gained: +900]
[Current EXP: 930 / 400]
[Level Up]
[Level: 3 → 4]
[Attribute Points Gained: +5]
The system went quiet for three heartbeats and then filled my vision with a wheel.
[Mission Reward: Wheel Spin Available. Coupon Consumed.]
[Wheel Spin Initiated]
[Result: Legendary — Talent Acquired: Devouring (Legendary Skill)]
My tongue went dry. The name sat in my head like a new tooth. Devouring. The panel gave a description.
[Talent: Devouring — Legendary Skill]
[Effect: Consume monster corpses to restore hunger and gain Attribute Points.]
[Yield: E–F = +1, D–C = +2, B–A = +3, S–SSS = Massive EXP and +10–20 Attribute Points.]
[Restriction: Repeated consumption of the same specimen reduces yield; excessive reuse causes nausea and zero gain.]
[Note: No direct side effects. Legendary rarity.]
The system did not cheer. It logged. I had expected a blade or better armor. Instead I got a talent that ate.
I tested it because that is what you do with a gift. A small crawler lay at my feet—an ordinary thing, E rank. I knelt and put a bite to its flesh. The meat tasted strange—cold and quick—but the hunger that had been a hard knot in my gut loosened. The panel blinked.
[Devouring Activated: Consumed Ordinary Monster (E) — Attribute Points +1]
[Strength +1]
Strength nudged up. I ate again and took a small, clean hunger away. My mind felt steadier. The edge that hunger chisels from a man's thought smoothed a fraction.
Then I ate a D-rank denling I had kept in a bag—stewed it over coals. The meat was richer. The system chimed.
[Devouring Activated: Consumed Monster (D) — Attribute Points +2]
[Agility +2]
Numbers climbed. My ledger grew. The attribute points are not glamour. Strength felt heavier, speed felt sharper. When the night came, I lay on a pile of hides and watched the stars through a crack. I had more points than a week ago. The level-ups fly when you eat clever.
There is a rule in this system: skills are born from talents. Two similar talents can upgrade one another. Absorbing the same family of talent lifts tiers. I already had Shadow Step and Combat Reflexes and Hunter's Gaze. Devouring was not like them—Devouring changed the meter. It turned meat into points and points into teeth.
The cave gave us surprises. On the seventh day a ceiling seam cracked. Rock fell in a wash and buried part of the tunnel. I worked with bare hands and rope until my fingers bled and the system kept time.
[Environmental Event: Cave Collapse]
[Action Required: Clear Debris — Time Limit 00:12:00]
I cut, heaved, and prayed in muscle. The panel stayed patient. A small team of rats and I made a hole and we pulled a child out—one of those poor things who wandered where they do not belong. His face was a smear, his arm broken. I thought of mercy, then I thought of ledger and list and the photograph. I wrapped him with my coat, made a splint from a branch, and dragged him toward the mouth.
I do not tell such things for pity. I tell them because they are the marks that break a man or let him keep enough parts to be dangerous. I still had something like a choice.
The system gave me a mission after the rescue.
[Mission Completed: Minor Rescue — Reward: Wheel Coupon x1]
I slept with the child breathing beside me and the heat of an elite core on my table. The ledger of names sat folded in my pocket like a promise. The system whispered of the qualifier closing and the time I had: 22 days.
[Objective: Prepare for National Competition. Time Until Qualifier: 22 days.]
I put the coin in my hand and thought of the wheel and the way numbers have begun to obey. My body hummed with new points and a hunger I can now feed without stealing from town folk. Devouring is a tool and I will carve it into a machine.
Outside the cave the world moved like a clock with teeth. The city would not suspect how fast I could become a storm. Inside me something colder settled, measured, and patient. Find them all, the voice said.
Tonight, as I sat and ate, I heard something vast breathe in the dark—an echo like a bell. The system blinked a warning I had not yet seen.
[Unknown Resonance Detected — High Energy Spike Nearby.]
I licked blood from my lips and stood. The night had folded into a different kind of hunger.
—
© 2025 Kael Virell. All rights reserved. This work is original creation of Kael Virell and may not be copied, reproduced, adapted, translated, or distributed without explicit written permission. Unauthorized use will result in legal action and immediate platform takedown to protect the author's rights.