[100% Drop Rate - SSS-Level Talent]
[Description: Whether it's monster kills, quest rewards, or any other event tied to a chance of obtaining items - the user always receives the reward with a 100% success rate. All random drop-related probabilities are overwritten to their maximum value.]
Leon stared at the panel for several long seconds.
He hadn't expected this.
Not even remotely.
In his previous life, S-rank talents were already considered monstrous. Anyone who awakened one became a target overnight, guilds fought over them, and powerful factions and Gods offered protection, resources, and influence just to keep them on their side.
SS-rank talents were even rarer.
Leon had personally met only a handful of people with abilities like that, and every one of them was a walking disaster, an individual capable of changing the course of wars or entire campaigns the moment they stepped onto the battlefield.
And yet…
This was SSS.
Leon had never heard of anything like it.
In fifteen years inside [Divine Ascension], the highest rank ever mentioned publicly had been SS. No one had ever awakened anything beyond that, at least, not officially.
"So that's what the white bar meant…" he whispered under his breath.
At that same moment, a faint breeze brushed past him, unnatural for a sealed, system-made village, and long black hair fell across his face, grazing his cheek.
Leon slowly swept it aside.
Wait…
I never had long hair.
He looked down at his hand.
It was slender, almost delicate, fine fingers and clean, naturally beautiful nails. Completely wrong for the hand of a warrior who'd held a sword for years.
A thin thread of unease tightened in his stomach.
He glanced lower, trying to understand what had changed. Even the reflection he caught in the system panel was… off. His features were too soft for a man, almost unnaturally beautiful, with long, gentle brows and a smooth jawline. And yet it was hard to call him a woman either, because his chest was still flat, lacking any feminine curves.
And then it hit him.
The sacrifice.
His sex.
He gave a crooked smile.
"In my previous life, I didn't do that…" he muttered. "Back then I sacrificed something much worse."
Then something else occurred to him.
He looked down more sharply, tension snapping through him, and pressed a hand to his chest as if to make sure everything was where it belonged. Only when his fingers met a flat surface did he finally let out a slow, relieved breath.
His brows drew together. He glanced left and right.
Everyone around him was busy with their own panels, reading talent descriptions, shouting, laughing, swearing, trying to understand what had just happened.
Leon used the moment.
Slowly, carefully, he slid his hand lower, beneath the fabric of his pants and underwear, trying to find anything familiar.
He froze.
There was nothing.
No male organs. No female organs.
Just smooth skin, no different from his stomach.
He pulled his hand back, very slowly.
A sad, crooked smile tugged at his mouth.
"Well then…" he sighed quietly. "Looks like I'll have to say goodbye to my little friend."
But when he looked back at his talent description again, his expression steadied almost immediately.
"Either way… it was worth it."
Around him, other players finished reading their own descriptions, and the village began to fill with noise, overlapping voices and raw emotion.
"Wait…can I get a replay of that?!"
"Ha! A-rank talent, baby! I knew it was worth it!"
"Seriously? I got D-rank… why?!"
A few meters away, someone screamed in panic.
"Wait…where… where's my arm?! Hello?! What's happening?!"
"Me too!" another voice shouted back. "I lost sight in one eye, but the system didn't say it was permanent! This is a joke, right?! You can undo it, can't you?!"
"Hey!" someone tried bargaining with the air. "I'll give the talent back! You hear me?! I'll give it back! It was supposed to be a game! Please…give me my memories back!!"
Excitement.
Disappointment.
Panic.
Leon ignored it all, focused only on testing his new body and analyzing what he'd gained, and what he'd lost, because in this game, the price was always real, and the reward…
The reward only revealed its true value later.
Another system window appeared before his eyes, simpler now, as if it no longer felt the need to explain anything.
[You may now check your status panel.]
Leon's expression sharpened slightly.
Those were the last direct hints they'd get for a long time. From here on out, the system would only watch, react mechanically, calculate, punish, and reward, without commentary and without mercy.
"Alright…" he murmured. "Let's see what's different from my previous life."
A familiar sensation brushed his mind, like someone drawing back a curtain, and a translucent system screen appeared.
[Name: Leon (Surname sacrificed)]
[Level: 1]
[Race: Human]
[Title: None]
[Talent: 100% Drop Rate (SSS)]
[Vitality: 10]
[Strength: 10]
[Agility: 10]
[Magic: 5]
[Skills: None]
[Power: 35]
Leon nodded.
"Good. Same as before."
Ten points in each basic attribute was standard, a flat starting line. But the fact his race was still Human meant one thing:
Below-average Magic.
Humans on his planet had never been able to naturally use mana before this moment, and the system didn't care about fairness.
The most important line was another one.
[Power.]
Every attribute point added one point of combat power, and equipment, buffs, consumables, and skills could push it even higher. In practice, that meant only one thing, higher Power meant higher survival, because in Divine Ascension, everything revolved around that number, even if the system never said it out loud.
"My combat power is one hundred forty-eight!" someone shouted a few meters away, pure disbelief in their voice.
"Holy shit… mine's only forty-four…" another answered, much quieter.
As players began checking their panels, the square filled again with voices, comparisons, nervous laughter, whispered calculations. Leon looked around and saw exactly what he remembered: Power varied wildly depending on race, creating massive inequality from the very start and making it clear no one would be treated equally.
At the same time, there was a hard cap.
For beginners at level one, regardless of race, Power never exceeded one hundred fifty.
And right on cue…
Weapons materialized in everyone's hands.
Leon looked at the sword that appeared in his grip, plain wood, slightly rough, with clear marks from sloppy craftsmanship.
[beginner's sword(Common): +2 Attack.]
Divine Ascension had no rigid class system.
Everyone began neutral, without a role, no "warrior," "mage," or "rogue" labels, because the system didn't force paths. It only made them possible.
If you wanted to be a mage, you learned spells and found a staff or a book.
If you wanted to be a fighter, you trained your body and used weapons.
Most players chose their direction based on their Talent, because building everything around your biggest advantage was the most sensible move.
In his previous life, Leon had naturally become a hybrid, because [Magic Knight] allowed it, pushed it, even, melding body, weapon, and magic into one cohesive progression.
But this time…
This time he didn't know yet. His talent didn't suggest any obvious combat path. It only promised something he'd understand in practice.
He sighed quietly.
And in that exact moment, the magical golden dome surrounding the Novice Village began to lower, as if someone were slowly shutting off the protection that had kept everything at bay. The ground at the village's edges trembled as beasts started rushing in from every direction.
Leon tightened his grip on the machete.
Shapes burst from the trees, the grass, the hills.
[Rabid Dog] , thin, bony bodies, bloodshot eyes, foam dripping from their jaws, running low to the ground as if every leap was meant to end in a torn throat.
[Rabid Rabbit] , smaller, but unnaturally fast, with elongated incisors that looked sharpened on purpose, hurling themselves at anything that moved without hesitation.
[Rabid Rat] , the size of a small dog, hairless tails whipping the air, surging in packs, squealing as they poured straight into the village center.
For a fraction of a second, silence fell.
Then panic detonated.
"W-what is that?!" a woman screamed, stumbling back so hard she tripped over her own feet.
"They're coming at us!" someone shrieked.
A few players simply froze, staring into the beasts' eyes, eyes that held neither anger nor fear, only hunger. Pure, mindless hunger, like they weren't looking at thinking beings, just food.
The first rabid dog slammed into the crowd.
"AAH! Help!" a man screamed, until jaws locked onto his shoulder, then his throat. His cry cut off mid-syllable, replaced by a wet, choking gurgle.
"Do something! Please!" someone else yelled, backing away as a rabid rabbit sprang onto their chest, sinking its teeth into their throat with shocking strength.
"No! No…get off!" a boy shrieked, swinging his sword blindly, before a rat knocked him down and more piled on, biting, tearing, dragging his body in different directions.
Panic spread through the village like fire.
People threw their weapons aside and ran. They tripped over each other, trampled the wounded, screamed, begged, cried, until blood began staining the ground a darker shade.
But not everywhere.
A few meters away, the red-horned demon let out a guttural roar, stepped forward, and with one clean swing split a rabid rat in half, ripping it from snout to tail like it was nothing but a sack of meat.
"Move," it snarled, kicking the corpse aside.
Not far from him, a dwarf cursed viciously, raised his sword in both hands, and smashed it down onto a charging rat's head, crushing its skull in a single blow. Bone and brain matter sprayed outward.
"Hold! Aim! Hit!" he bellowed, though no one listened.
In a few places, the elves began to fight with cold precision, retreating step by step, striking only when a beast entered range, wasting no motion.
But they were the minority.
Most players weren't prepared at all.
Not mentally.
Not physically.
Not for the fact that this wasn't training. It wasn't a simulation.
And there was no pause button.
This was a fight to the death.