A few minutes later, the forest went quiet again.
The system finished tallying everything in his field of view, lines of text stacking neatly in order.
"Fifty EXP… plus the fifty from killing players…"
Jake did the math under his breath, his voice settling into something steadier.
"That's exactly a hundred."
His eyes kept moving.
"And five Talent Evolution Shards. Five Rarity Upgrade Points."
His heartbeat started accelerating uncontrollably.
Not from fear this time.
From excitement.
On top of that, there were the 5 Monster Reputation points he'd gotten earlier.
He had enough for a full upgrade.
Jake's gaze dropped to his status panel.
Inferior Gnoll Bloodline.
A one-percent crit chance.
In the short term, that Talent was basically useless. Even if it triggered, it was just a lucky spike—nothing that would reliably raise his combat power.
His brow furrowed.
The thought process lasted maybe a second.
"Fix the body problem first."
The decision snapped into focus, crystal clear.
Jake decisively exchanged his Reputation for Rarity Upgrade Points.
The numbers on the screen jumped instantly.
A progress bar filled at a pace he could actually see.
[Level 1 Rarity Upgrade Points: 10/10 (Upgrade Available)]
His breathing hitched.
"…It really can upgrade?"
For a beat, the forest around him felt even quieter.
Jake didn't hesitate again.
"Upgrade."
The moment he confirmed, a column of golden light dropped out of nowhere.
It wasn't blinding, but it was warm—strong in a way that felt almost protective, wrapping around his whole body. The instant it touched him, his senses shifted.
First came his bones.
Like some invisible force was recalibrating them, every connection buzzing with tiny vibrations, a faint internal resonance.
Then his muscles—tightening in a dense, continuous ripple, like they were being rewoven. Reordered.
Strength flowed through him.
From his core out into his limbs, then back again, settling into a stable, circulating loop.
His breathing smoothed out.
His chest expanded without resistance, airflow clean and natural.
His limbs steadied.
The clumsy, awkward center of gravity from before finally started obeying him. Every joint rotation felt sharper, more coordinated—like this body had finally aligned with his mind.
When the light slowly faded, Jake lowered his head.
The label in his vision had changed.
"Gnoll (Frail)" was gone.
In its place was a clean, simple name:
"Gnoll."
No extra tags.
No "Frail."
Jake froze for a split second.
Then he couldn't help laughing.
It was low and rough, but it carried something he'd been holding in for way too long.
"I'm not Frail anymore."
He let out a slow breath.
"Finally not a defective model."
And in that moment, it honestly felt like even the air around him had turned a little fresher.
Jake lifted his head, focus snapping back into place.
"Open status panel."
With the thought, the familiar screen unfolded in front of him again.
[Character Bound: Jake]
[Race: Gnoll]
Ordinary Gnoll (no bonus to base attributes)
[Rarity: Unranked]
[Level: 1 (Progress: 100/200)]
[Attributes: Strength: 5 Agility: 5 Vitality: 5]
[Attack Power: 7–10 Physical]
[Defense: 3 Physical]
[Health: 100]
[Talent: Inferior Gnoll Bloodline (Unranked). Basic attacks have a 6% chance to deal 2x critical damage.]
[Level 1 Talent Evolution Shards: 0/10]
[Level 1 Rarity Upgrade Points: 0/20]
[Monster Reputation: 0]
Jake stared at the "Attributes" line for two seconds, then split into a huge grin—sharp canine teeth flashing.
"Hah. My core attributes are finally normal!"
In that instant, he could literally feel something that had been sitting on his chest for way too long finally break apart. That suffocating sense of being nerfed, restricted, like he could get stepped on at any moment—gone, washed away with the afterglow of that golden light.
He shook out his arms hard, then took two steps in place.
The feedback from his claws against the ground was crisp and steady. His muscles didn't fire in messy bursts anymore—they responded cleanly to his intent. That shift, from forcing control over his body to his body obeying his mind, made him inhale deep, chest opening up.
It felt solid.
Like he'd finally found his rhythm again.
He let out a low chuckle. On a gnoll's face it looked a little feral, but the satisfaction was real.
"Looks like I can keep evolving too…"
His gaze slid down and paused on the increased requirement for Rarity Upgrade Points. His slightly narrow eyes slowly narrowed further, a cold glint passing through his pupils as a deeper idea quietly took shape.
"If that's true…"
His voice dropped.
"Then this gets interesting."
After tasting what growth felt like, his eyes turned almost instinctively toward the "same kind" still wandering nearby.
Dappled light flickered over them as they moved with the same sluggish, repetitive patterns. Compared to him now, they looked painfully slow.
Right now, he was a complete, ordinary gnoll.
And they were still Frail.
In theory, he could solo any one of them without breaking a sweat.
But just as that thought locked in, a burst of noisy human voices carried in from deeper in the woods, slicing through the calm.
"Mobs respawned over there—hurry up and grab them, or there won't be any left!"
"People are everywhere now. New accounts keep pouring in…"
"I just checked the official site—starter village is at sixty thousand players right now, and it's still climbing!"
The voices came through the trees in broken pieces, but they were clear enough.
Jake's ears perked up automatically.
The new body's boosted hearing let him catch movement from farther out. He looked in the direction of the noise and saw it—through gaps between trunks, a whole mass of figures shifting. Just what he could make out was already more than a dozen, moving fast toward this area.
The air tightened.
"…That many?"
His stomach dropped.
The safety he'd just clawed back got crushed by reality in one hard second. Forget a dozen—if five more players like SunnyBunny showed up, he'd have a hard time surviving in his current state.
To players, this was the newbie zone.
To him, it was a place that could flip between hunting ground and slaughterhouse at any moment.
"Now's not the time to farm."
Jake tightened his grip on the club, eyes tracking the approaching shapes through the trees.
"It's time to run."