In a private hospital room a young man sat on the bed tapping away at the keyboard, boy his age should have an aura of vibrant new life but the boy gave a weak impression. Pale skin from a long stay indoors, skinny arm and slightly sunken ribcage caused by lack of nutritional intake, faint eyebags making people think of a dying candle in the night but even so his eye was that of unyielding flame that refuse to extinguish.
There was a light knocking on the door as it slide open, the boy stop his typing and raise his head to see a short hair handsome young woman opening the door, she flash a smirk waving to him.
"Hey Jin, I came to collect the manuscript" She brush her black hair mixed with red stripes aside and place a boxed lunch on the table next to him.
Jin set the laptop aside, hand her a stack of paper and open the plastic lunch box, inside was an array of sushi and sashimi. Seeing the expensive fatty tuna Jin raises his brown in surprise, and curiously glance at Yuki, his childhood friend.
"Today marks 1 year of you being in the hospital so I thought a little celebration would be nice" She doesn't lift her head and talk while carefully looking at the manuscript in hand.
"I don't think anyone would celebrate something like being in the hospital as if it was an anniversary" The corner of Jin's mouth twitched at her answer but still pick up the sushi with great delight. Tasting the sashimi that melt like butter in his mouth he reminisced of the past year in this new and strange world.
Waking up in a new unfamiliar world, in an unfamiliar body, he thought it was a new chance at life but life slap him in the face harder than a semi-truck going Mach 10 down the highway. A weak body, a failing lung, a heart that takes all his energy to barely beat, a stomach that can only handle a limited number of food, kidneys that barely work, facing such starting point he almost wants to end it all to reduce the suffering and start again.
But there was something that help him to persist until now, a gamble that he waited patiently for a year. This world is similar but also vastly different from his old one, the main difference is the existence of magic and dungeon that show up around 500 years ago, there are many theories and speculation on the origin of dungeons but the major consensus is that it's a gate to a different dimension.
By defeating monsters in a dungeon, one can level up, and gain more strength, new skills, and countless such elements causing this world's development to shift greatly compared to his old world. There is no food shortage as anyone with enough level of nature magic or a farming class can feed thousands of people by themselves. Instead of using fossil fuel or electricity, magic crystals dropped from dungeon monsters are the main power sources in this world from the car on the road to the light in your house.
That is not to say there is no conflict of interest but relatively speaking the average person in this world has a much more comfortable life, even the lowest-paying job can let you get by as long there is a bit of saving. Though other aspects of this world fell behind like in the medical field, cause there is healing magic and various life magic rarely was there any major epidemic, the chance of birth defect is also low as the human body becomes stronger the higher level they are.
Why bother to develop medicine when a healer class professional can just wave his hand and dispel 99.9% of diseases, the rare case where the patient doesn't recover immediately will resolve itself with enough time due to a stronger body and immune system from leveling up. Cases like Jin are honestly a 1 in a million, he can live on with weekly healing magic treatment and regenerative spells but due to his inborn defect, it is almost certain that he will spend the rest of his life in a hospital bed.
On the side, Yuki finished reading and carefully put them in an envelope and seal it as if it wad a priceless treasure. Looking at her serious face under the sunlight Jin's mouth twitched in annoyance, other people's childhood friend is a gentle and kind girl next door that takes care of the protagonist wholeheartedly but his childhood friend is more handsome than him and get more girl than him.
Jin has stopped counting the number of times when he calls her and is greeted with moaning sounds instead, this girl seems to have an unusual attractiveness to other women, she changes girlfriends as often as she changes clothes. He does have to admit she is very good looking, that plus her usual outfit of tight jeans, a black leather jacket over a white shirt gave a wild beauty, if he was a girl there no doubt he would be on her long list of exes as well. Yuki ignore the complicated gaze and reaches into her jacket, pulling out a white spherical object and pulling his attention instantly.
"Awakening Pearl..." A rare item drop from a B-rank dungeon in America, a rather tasteless item as its only use is to help level 0 like him into a level 1. It has a low drop rate in a medium to high-rank dungeon and its effect can be achieved by just going to any random dungeon and hunting a monster, numerous factor cause turn it into a very rare and expensive item that Jin finally get after a whole year of searching.
Trembling with excitement Jin grabs it and the small orb glows brightly before melting in his hand. There was a sound of trumpets in Jin's head as he bask in the effect of leveling up, every cell in his body seem to gain a new life and his heart beat with excitement. Seeing this Yuki smiles before standing up to leave, she returns to her usual cold face with a brisk pace as she heads toward Jin's attending doctor's office.
There was no need to knock as the doctor is also once her lover, counting the day since Jin's 1st time in the hospital Yuki has already dated 8 doctors and 21 nurses. The doctor, a long hair beauty in her own right looked up for a second, adjust her glasses, and push a folder toward Yuki before continuing her work.
Doctor Maria, a level 36 healer type class consider one of the hospital's role models and leading physicians, no one would have thought that she was a massive M with a high sex drive. She held on until now by burying herself in her work but Yuki's charm caused her to offer herself with collar and leash in hand, literally.
"Same time this Friday?" Maria asks not looking up, afraid of reaching climax if she looks into Yuki's cold oppressive eye for too long.
"Busy, I have a free slot on Sunday afternoon" Yuki also focuses on flipping through the report paying her no heed, which only excites Maria further. After a while she close the file and walk away with a gloomy look on her face, leaving behind a blushing Maria that was rubbing her leg slightly water-stained together.
The report was a summary of Jin's condition and how beneficial the effect of leveling up on the human body is, then finally speculation of how high his level needs to be to make a complete recovery. In conclusion, depending on his class and what stat it specializes in, Jin needs to be level 60 at the lowest if his class is tank type that put all stat into Con and level 85 if not.
The more Yuki thinks the more upset she becomes, the current world's highest level Hunter is level 91 from Africa and practically lives in an SS-rank dungeon year round and even if luck smiles upon Jin level 60 is the average level of a nation's top powerhouse. In Japan, the number of people around that level is no more than 20, also there is no way for a bedridden weakling like Jin to survive even the lowest level dungeon so the only way for him to level up is through Exp Crystal.
While not a rare drop because it represents a safe way to become stronger there is always a shortage on the market with rich people competing to get more for themselves. The amount that would need to level up from level 1 to 60 would be more than enough to purchase several small countries, even if Jin is the author of several leading works in the entertainment industry right now, it would take hundreds more of such work to buy the needed amount. She bangs her head lightly against the wall in frustration, the direction is there but the road has too many challenges. In contrast to Yuki's situation, Jin was having a great time exploring his new ability.
When a person levels up for the 1st time they will get to select a class, what class a person can get depend on their innate aptitude and prior training or life experience. A person that trains with the sword their whole life can naturally have Swordman class as their option but they can also have the Magician class if they are born with the talent for it, if they are not satisfied with the class given they can put off choosing one and still level up but that rarely happens as it is much harder to beat monster without the stat bonus and skill. There is typically no way to personally assign the stat you gain from leveling up, it will automatically be added depending on your class specialty and those without class will have their stat thrown around randomly like a dice roll so no sane person would put off Class selection for too long as not to affect their future development.
Jin's class selection option was empty, none, not a single class, such a phenomenon was unheard of even if an absolutely talentless person would have something like Bystander class as an option. This was due to Jin's Ability, something that shows up sometimes when a person awakens, there is no correlation to the person at all as what Ability they get is completely random. It could be good, bad, relate to their Class, talent, training, or not at all, one of the world's strongest tanks professional Balder the Iron Giant, class Crusader, level 74, his Ability: Candy Mixer, can freely mix different favor to create candy.
He gains a big following after the image of a 3-meter tall man clad in heavy golden armor bending down to make candy for a crying kid in the crowd went viral on the magic net. Jin remembers smiling when he saw the interview where Balder talk about his out-of-character ability.
"I wasn't that good at dealing with children so this ability was a godsend for my trouble, it also helps attract the ladies as well" - A hulking mass of muscle that was too big for the chair he was sitting on, Balder von Dovzin.
As for how true this statement was? The interview lady ended up becoming his loving wife and they have been married for 15 years with 3 children, Germany has a national chocolate brand based mostly on their love story. When Jin was in good health his favorite one was Night Snow, white snowflake-shaped chocolate based on Balder's story of how he proposed to his wife on Christmas Eve, Yuki's favorite is The Giant Love, a massive 16-inch pure dark chocolate bar.
Shaking off the thought of how they conceive such a design Jin focuses back on his Ability: RPG. There are many functions but the main one include allowing him to choose any class he wants, ANY, this is completely broken as he can choose a class that has extremely strict requirement on stuff like talent, training, race, bloodline, etc and his body will adjust accordingly to meet the requirement of that class.
Second, Avatar, like how RPG games give you the option to create a new character with a different class for a new gaming experience but in this world it meant that for every 5 levels, he can make a clone of himself that can also have any class. Jin was in a daze flipping through the Book of Class that he was given by the System, some classes give you the ability to make the finest of weapons, harness the power of nature, become a king that rules over million, or a sage that seeks the truth of the world.
Jin is like a starving man who suddenly drops into a buffet, there is endless food in front of him but he is at a loss on what to eat. There was the sound of boots coming so he closed the book as it dematerialize into magic particles, Yuki came back expressionless as always but knowing her for a whole year he can sense the subtle hint of sadness in her ruby eyes. He already read the doctor's report of his condition and the solution they offer, but it was not practical even from a very optimistic point of view. All of those concern are no longer a thing as now he got a very good ability and unlike his old life, Jin have no concern over money and is super rich.
Since his 1st week in the hospital, Jin was bored of this world's entertainment, it was all the damn same 'The F-class Hunter rises to S-rank and gains a harem' 'The abandoned Hunter of an S-rank party turns out to be the strongest' 'Return of an S rank Hunter', everything was either Hunter or dungeon theme. While ecstatic at first cause it was a new world to him Jin eventually got bored of reading the same thing so he decided to recreate some of the iconic work in his old world. Before kid's dream was to become an S rank hunter, now their dream was to become the Hokage, collect the 7 dragon balls, and find the One Piece while attending Hogwarts School of mutant magician heroes and fighting Godzilla being controlled by Darth Vader.
Continuously making smash hits one after another he gain a massive amount of fame and infamy in the industry due to his habit of leaving the audience on cliffhangers and running to make a new project. As we speak there are probably fans rolling on the ground cursing at him to let them know what gonna happen to Ace at Marine Ford, who is the orange masked man, did Goku die fighting Vegeta or not, what did Vader tell Luke,...
His editor has gained so many promotions that he is practically the same level as the vice president of the publishing company now but every week he still calls him while crying and begging for him to release the next chapter of a certain series before he dies from the letter of complaint and death threat that was sent in. If he didn't awaken a good ability, Jin intended to put all his work on indefinite hiatus, a childish action like raising a middle finger to cruel fate but thanks to such thought now his net worth is within the top 1000 of people in the world and the 999 other people are all either country leader, nation guild leader or S rank hunter.
All those thoughts are no longer though as Jin can't help but dream of his future, first of all, he needs to get out of the hospital to avoid raising suspicion if he recovers too quickly. The problem is how to convince Yuki to move him out.