Hope woke up in the hospital bed, his mind still reeling from recent events. Sitting up, he noticed his status window pop up unexpectedly.
His stats and skill window appeared:
Species: Human
Status: Normal
Skills: 2
Class: None
"Why did my status suddenly open? I didn't even think about it. Maybe it's because of the message I got during the fight," Hope muttered to himself.
Hope focused on his skills, and the skill window appeared. This time, he could read the skill descriptions. Hope's breath caught in his throat as he absorbed the newfound information. "My skills... I can see them," he whispered, feeling relief wash over him.
Skill List
Growth (Active/Passive): Ability to grow the user and the user's surroundings by using Experience Points. The user can apply this skill to themselves or others. XP - 20
Hope thought: Experience Points... it's like in a game. By defeating enemies, I gain Experience Points and can level up. But growing after awakening? That's new. It must be a high-ranking unique skill.
A message popped up, "Growth activating," and the status window displayed:
Species: ???
Class: None
Status: Normal
Health: 50/50
Mana: 12/12
Strength: 6
Defense: 15
Agility: 10
Luck: 1
Intelligence: 16
Skills: 2
XP: 0
Unallocated stats: 0
"What happened to the status bar? This looks like a menu from a game."
"Why isn't my species showing? Are these skills turning me into something else, like the others who awakened all those years ago? And my luck... that explains a lot."
Hope looked through that and moved on to the next skill.
Life Stealer (Passive): Absorbs life essence from the user's surroundings, temporarily boosting the user's stats until their body reaches its limit. (Unable to learn any additional skills) (Incomplete skill)
"Life Stealer... the reason I couldn't gain new skills. It's all because of this skill I'm like this, and it's still incomplete. He was right about me. I should just die; I caused my mother to end up in the hospital. I absorbed the power of people causing them to get sick. Some of those people's ranks decreased because of me. After all of this, I never visited her. I thought I was the cause. I can make it right. But..."
Hope cried while talking: "Why is my life like this? Why doesn't my father blame me? Why is he still kind to me even after what I did to mom? Why?" I wish I never had these skills.
Suddenly, a message prompted him to complete the skill. Hope hesitated, but a flicker of determination urged him on.He selected yes to the message "combinable skill found".
"Using 20XP on Life Stealer skill," the message flashed before him. Hope held his breath, hoping for success. But the skill correction failed, skill modification failed skill upgradation failed, skill degradation failed, compatible skill not found"Transforming the skill to its original form - successful" another message appeared. "Skill completed."
Hope's white eyes widened, and a message popped up: "Life Stealer skill transformed to Eater."
Eater (Active): Devour targets for absorbing the power (does not work on living beings).
"My skill changed. The other messages are gone. I am free. I think I can gain skills now; that damn power is gone, and this skill is active, unlike that Life Stealer (Passive) skill. I can't harm anyone now. My skill won't work on living beings. I will not bring any harm to others." Finally, a smile came to Hope's face after all this time," Hope smiled even though he is crying.
"Now I can see my mother and be with her; I won't harm her. I can finally see her."
Hope realized, "Even if a hunter is E rank with the skills hunters learn after awakening will make them stronger to at least D+ rank. All this time I was not able to learn any new skills. I think I can get new skills now, and with the growth skill, I think I can grow. Maybe I can increase my rank and improve my skill rank or change it to a superior skill. And if I go above floor 5, maybe I'll see a wandering merchant or get information about my mother's illness, and I can save her.
I need to test my power before that. I should learn a recovery skill; my body is a mess now. I need to gain a skill and increase my recovery speed. And with this improved status bar and skills, I must keep it from others knowing. There will be an investigation on what happened in the tower that day. I should make up a story to make people believe my skills are gone. I should not tell them my skill changed; I will tell them my skills are gone. That's my only way, and with my skill changed, I can start over and begin from a clean slate. I've suffered enough because of my skills; I can tell them I reawakened, and my skills are gone after that."
As Hope looked at his stats and skills, suddenly two men entered the room, dressed in suits.
The elder man in the suit said, "We're from the Awakens Union. I'm Oliver, and this is my partner Henry. We talked to your doctor; are you fine now? Are you able to talk to us?"
Hope said yes, I am fine now, I can talk.
"A hunting party returning from the 20th floor found you; they healed you from afar because of the skills you have and informed us. We brought you here and investigated the incident that happened the other day."
Hope's inside voice: Am I going to get arrested? I just became free of that skill, and now I'm going to be locked up again. I need to avoid that. Hope asked: "How did you carry me here; you know about my skills right?"
Oliver said: "I have a skill called detection because of that, I knew your skill was not activated. Even if it's activated, I have a shield skill. In our report, it said you have a passive skill, passive skills activate all the time, but yours is not activated. Do you want to tell us something?"
Hope said: "That power of mine is gone now; I'm free of that skill."
Henry: "What, your skill is gone? It's not possible. Nothing like this has happened since the tower appeared. Tell us what happened, kid."
Hope said: "I've been hunting the tower grounds for almost a year. Before my skill was revealed, I was in parties, but after my skill was known, I hunted solo. Because of that skill, many people used me as bait in parties to weaken the monsters and complete the raid easily. Just like that, John and his teammates used me as bait in their party. That day, John and John's teammates had a big raid to get into a guild; they failed the raid, and they were angry. They tried hunting on the first floor, but there were no more goblins to hunt, so John decided to use his anger on a caged goblin. He started to kick the goblin in the cage. John used his teammate's sword to stab them. The goblin in the cage avoided them and grabbed the sword from John, freeing himself and the other goblin in the cage. The teammates and I knew the goblin had gone crazy from all the days in the cage, but John refused to back off, and he fought. I had to fight too. Then I absorbed every goblin's power when they came to kill me, and I killed the rest of the goblins alive. It was by pure luck I survived. Then I saw a message again, "The tower welcomes you."
Oliver said: "He is telling the truth I can't detect any power emitting from him even now. He is not using his debuffing power. It's a passive power from our records, so he must be telling the truth. Kid, register again; we'll give you a new license and update your rank."
"Let's go," said Oliver, as they moved out. Lift the ban on the room; people can enter now.
As they left the room and walked, Henry asked Oliver, "Why didn't you question him thoroughly? There are still more questions to ask. There might be foul play involved."
Oliver replied, "Foul play? There is a chance, but I don't think so. His story matches the evidence we found. John and his other teammates were killed by a sword, and the other two were killed by goblins. The sword wounds on them are not like a human did it; it's like a vengeful animal did it. So I am sure it's a goblin. And in some critical moments, hunters reawaken. I believe that's what happened to him. But for now, all we can do is report it to the leader."
Henry said: "Sir, I saw you use the mana sensing skill. Based on your mana reading, what rank is he now?"
Oliver replied, "There is only a small bit of mana in him. I think he will be a D-ranker or E+ ranker."
Henry said: "I thought reawakening is a rare thing and that he would become a B-ranker or above."
Oliver said: "Let's see what the future holds."
After they're gone, Hope looked through his skills again and came to know of his newfound abilities, and he tried to gain some skills that are common knowledge to anyone how to get them. First, he meditated for hours, and after some hours of doing that, he got a skill of Resting.
Resting E: By resting, the user can regain lost stats a little bit faster.
Hope said: "Finally, after hours of trying, I gained a skill. Now I can heal faster, and it's true that cursed skill is gone. I can gain skills.
Hope smile, and rested on the bed."
A few days later, Hope got discharged from the hospital. "I discharged faster than the doctor said, and I only got the resting skill. I should gain some new skills," Hope looked at his wallet and said, "There goes the last of the money. I should mine some mana stone from the tower."
Hope turned his head and saw the tower and started to walk towards it. As he reached the tower's first floor with the mining tools he got from the entrance of the tower, he had no weapons.
Hope said: "I should test out my new stats." As Hope moved forward, his memories were flooded with the incident that happened to him. Hope thought and traveled to a beginner area where slimes spawned instead of goblins; he wanted to test out his power. Before his skills changed, Hope sometimes absorbed the slime's power and then tried to kill goblins to get an upper hand. He broke a branch from the tree and searched for a slime. After some time, he found one and attacked it with all his might, killing it after two attacks.
Nothing happened, so he checked his stats menu, which showed 1 XP. Then he knew the value of a slime's life is 1 XP. So if he hunted higher rank monsters, he would get higher XP. Then he tried to activate Eater.
Eater activated, but nothing happened.
Then he tried to kill more slimes nearby and activate his skills, but nothing happened. After some time, he killed a slime and activated the skill.
The slime's body got bitten by purple-black teeth, devouring the body. Hope jumped back by instinct, and he got a message: "Hit skill learned".
Hit E: Physical attack damage increases.
"So, my suspicion was right. By killing, I get XP. It is the growth skill. It's a passive skill, and Eater skill eats the body, giving me the skills if they have. This type of skill cannot be gained by normal means, so this is this slime's unique skill." Hope hunted more and gained 70 XP but no other skills.
He looked at his stats and thought, "The skill told me that I can grow; just how can I do that? The skill said it's active and passive; it worked passively all this time. How can I activate it?"
Growth skill activated.
He thought just by thinking about activating the skill, I can activate this skill; the window shows XP 70 and unallocated points to 0. Hope thought about the XP and unallocated points; the 70 XP turned to 7 unallocated points.
"Oh, now I get it. If I think of converting XP, I can turn it into points and use it on me just like a game." He thought of a way he can get stronger; I should put it into strength, but I felt sad for my miserable luck. He looked at his stats and decided to put it on his lousy luck.
Species: ???
Class: None
Status: Normal
Health: 50/50
Mana: 12/12
Strength: 6
Defense: 15
Agility: 10
Luck: 8
Intelligence: 16
Skills: 4
XP: 0
Unallocated stats: 0
and then hunt for some more time. Hope saw a slime near a cave; he tried to kill it with hit skill. The slime died instantaneously. When he looked around, mana stones started to grow in the cave near him; he knew it was because of the increase in luck, and he reached the kill limit in the area because of that the mana stones regenerated. Before his skill changed, he had to go to an area where higher species of goblins live to mine for mana stones, and the stones he got were so low quality he got only less money than the price. He took his tools to go to the caves to mine the mana stone. Hope further traveled in the cave mining, and he saw a few cave spiders; he killed them and got 1 XP for each spider. Luckily there were a lot of spiders, and Hope easily killed them. After some time, Hope's bag was full of mana stones, and he got 80 XP and 1 more skill.
Sense E: Knowledge of surroundings and sense danger.
Hope looked at his stats and skills and put all the points to strength.
At that time, a message popped up, combinable skills found, and he saw 2 skills that he just got hit and sense. Hope clicked yes to combine in getting a better skill, but a message popped up: "Not enough XP." Hope hit his head with his hand, "I used all my points in strength; it's 14 now, but I need to hunt more if I knew growth has a power like this, I would have saved my points," and he started to hunt more.
Later, Hope clicked yes, "Using 20XP on combination," the message flashed before him.
"Combination - successful,
Detection E: Grants the user heightened sensory perception. The user can detect his surroundings with high sensing in every senses, increased awareness of their surroundings, detecting movements around the user's area.
"This skill is the skill that the man from the association got; I got this skill. Wow, it's a good skill to have. Not only growth skill allows me to grow, but my skills can be combined too, and every skill I got has a level so I can upgrade that too. But the two skills I got are gone!!! No use thinking about it now; I got a better skill than the two skills. But I need an attack skill now. I'm going to be so powerful with my skills; I don't know what all the features of the growth skill are. I must learn about this skill." Hope returned to the tower entrance, killing all creatures he saw, gaining XP.
Later in the night, in the tower's mana stone selling area.
"Wow, I made this much money from mining; the mana stone must be top quality from the first floors. My luck got this because my luck increased, and with my current strength, I am positive I can kill a goblin with equal footing. I need to be more powerful; I need to hunt more tomorrow." Hope looked at his stats.
Species: ???
Class: None
Status: Normal
Health: 50/50
Mana: 12/12
Strength: 14
Defense: 15
Agility: 10
Luck: 8
Intelligence: 16
Skills: 4
XP: 40
Unallocated stats: 0
There is 40 XP; I should save it until I get to know the full power of growth.
Hope walked back to his home, thinking about the events of the day and planning for tomorrow.