As the clock struck midnight, Hope lay asleep in bed. Suddenly, the sound of explosions and the cries of a girl echoed through the building and its surroundings, awakening Hope. Startled, he grabbed the daggers he kept nearby and looked around before rushing to the door.
A neighboring girl, fleeing in panic, dashed past him toward the corner when Hope opened the door. Hope glanced in the direction she had come from and spotted a monster lurking in the shadows, its eyes glowing with a menacing cyan hue.
The girl, breathless and terrified, said: "Run, it's a dungeon break," before running off.
15 minutes earlier - The girl had been scrolling through her phone when a breaking news alert caught her attention: 2 dungeons in Area 7 had broken, triggering a resonating dungeon break. Realizing the gravity of the situation, she regretted not stocking up on supplies and felt a strange presence outside her room. When she got closer, a wild cat dashed through the pet door into the room, startling her. She laughed it off and turned to look at the pet door again, only to see a skeletal hand reaching in, instilling terror as she struggled to remain silent. After some time, the hand retreated, but she was still scared and sweating uncontrollably. She thought of getting something to block the door, but when she tried to move a chair, the cat hiding underneath it ran through the appartment, making more noise. In the commotion caused by the cat, a sword struck the door, breaking it in half. When she saw the skeleton, she froze in fear, but the cat's reaction distracted it, allowing her to escape. As she silently moved covering her mouth,but an explosion suddenly occurred, causing her to scream. Hearing that skeleton approaching the door by the noise it made in the shadow of the hall but its face was partially seen, she felt a chill run down her spine and ran. At that moment, a door opened.
Hope stood facing the skeleton with armor and a sword without flinching, but his mind was racing with thoughts.
The skeleton swung the sword, but Hope killed it in a single strike. Hope's mind was cleared by that, and he gained confidence to face the situation. The girl, observing from a safe distance, recognized his prowess and cautiously approached him, silently acknowledging his strength and knowing that survival was only possible with him.
Hope thought: I know her; I've seen her so many times in the building, but we've never communicated.
Hope: "What happened?"
Girl: She explained the situation and she said "They said 17 dungeons broke, ranging from B- to F-rank; that's all I know."
"It's not safe here. Let's go to a shelter."
Girl: "Okay, and I'm Kara, by the way. Thanks for saving my life."
Hope: "Let's go. If we stay here, there will be more monsters. I'm Hope."
Hope's inner thought: 17 dungeon breaks mean 17 species of monsters. I need to kill them and know the kill ratio. I want to get more skills, so let's put all the remaining points into luck. It will help me survive and get stronger.
Species: ???
Class: None
Status: Normal
Health: 50/50
Mana: 12/12
Strength: 22
Defense: 20
Agility: 20
Luck: 25
Intelligence: 20
Skills: 8
XP: 0
Unallocated stats: 0
Skills:
Dash F
Camouflage F
Appraisal F
Resting F
Growth
Eater
Blade Art F
Detection F
As Hope and Kara moved, avoiding monsters, they saw the city in flames, destruction at its peak. Some hunters were fighting monsters, purely a chaotic chase. Hope fought some monsters and killed them, while for some monsters, they hid.
Kara: "The shelter is up ahead. Let's go." Kara rushed, urging Hope to move quickly.
Hope quickly carried her and jumped through the window of a building, breaking the glass. Kara was screaming, and Hope placed her down.
Kara: "Hey, what are you doing?"
At the same time, a giant dinosaur-type monster stepped on the exact spot where they were.
Hope's inner thought: So that's a B-rank boss monster. Look at its size. I need to get a lot stronger to hunt you.
Kara: "I've never seen a monster this big. Oh, and thanks for saving my life. How did you see the monster? It was that big; I only saw it when it placed its legs on the ground."
Hope: "I can detect monsters; it's a skill of mine."
Kara: "Thanks. Without you, I don't know what would have happened. Let's go."
Hope: "It's not safe with these monsters on the road. Let's move a different way."
Kara: "How?!"
Hope, at the top of the building, holding Kara, used "Dash" to move from one building to another, with Kara screaming.
Hope: "Don't scream; you'll attract monsters."
Kara: "It's scary, you know. I've never jumped from a building before!"
Hope: "I don't do this often; this is my first time too."
Hope continued this, finally reaching the shelter. The shelter was about to close.
Kara: "Let's go in."
Hope: "Go in. I sense humans. I need to save them."
Kara: "You are not coming inside." With a broken voice, she said, "I'm not forcing you to stay. Just promise me you will return, okay?"
Hope smiled and nodded as the shelter door closed.
Hope: "This is the first time someone has asked for my safe return other than my parents. Why does this make me happy? No focus. She's gone. Now I can freely use my power."
Hope searched for monsters to hunt.
"Why aren't there any D-rank or E-rank monsters with skills? With my luck, I thought I could see many monsters with skills, but I can't see any. And the conversion rate... why do all the different species of monsters have only 2 or 3 XP? Even the lesser goblins have 5 XP compared to them. Skeletons and other monsters are a lot stronger than the goblins. Let's hunt more and see what happens."
Hope decided to move to another area, detecting some skeleton monsters, but they had no skills when he used Appraisal. Then, a message popped up: "Level increased. Appraisal E."
Hope: "My skill rank increased."
Hope used the skill on the same monster but revealed additional stats:
Species: Skeleton Warrior
Class: Warrior
Status: Undead
Health: -10/-100
Mana: 50/58
Strength: 14
Defense: 15
Agility: 15
Luck: 4
Intelligence: 0
Skills: 0
Mana Stone: Rune of Warrior
Items: 0
"What mana stone? That can only be obtained in towers 10th floor onwards and on dungeon bosses. That skeleton's stats don't look like a dungeon boss. Why does a low-ranked skeleton have a Rune of Warrior, which is a class change for warriors, and items naturally generated are so rare? Maybe if I use Eater, I can get that. Why didn't I use Eater on the bodies of the monsters I killed? Maybe they had items or runes. Ohhhhhh, and now I got the idea: monsters in the dungeon have items or runes, and some rare monsters have skills. But the monsters from the tower have skills and sometimes items. But with my appraisal, I need to check to confirm. Maybe because they are below the 10th floor, they are all weak monsters and don't have a mana stone inside. I need to check it."
At that time, Hope saw a group of hunters attacking the skeletons. Hope used Dash to move there and distracted the specific skeleton with the mana stone. The skeleton followed Hope as he removed it from the group. Then, Hope and the skeleton reached the back alley of the building.
Hope used Dash and swung with his dagger, killing the skeleton. The skeleton's bones cracked and crumbled to the ground.
Hope: "That was easy. I'm really different from my old self."
Eater: Skill activated; a purple smoke ate the skeletons he saw the rune where the skeleton was when he picked it up. A message popped up: Growth activated; upgrade possible, and a skill tree appeared.
Hope: "Wow, not only can I get a rune, but I can also upgrade the rune to a rare class. I can't see the top; it's app locked. Maybe if I upgrade this, I can get a rare class. But why is the upgrade option not visible? Maybe it needs a condition to activate, like having the same type of skills can be combined to form a more powerful skill. Maybe it's like that with another mana stone of the same type that can upgrade this. I don't want to class change now; if I change my class, my other class skills will disappear. But getting skills in the same class will be easy. But with Growth and Eater skill, I can get any type of skills and increase my power. So that's decided; I'm not choosing any class and remain classless. If I hunt more monsters, I will get many class change runes; it will make me rich."
Hope decided to move from one area to another.
Hope: "She said there were 17 dungeon breaks, so there should be 17 species. But I've only seen skeletons, goblins, wild boars, and those big monsters. Where are the other 13 monsters? Maybe it's my luck. With my luck, I only saw monsters I can defeat, or powerful monsters are in a different area than mine." Hope looked for more monsters; he saw a monster in the middle of the city fleeing from some hunters. The monster used curse binding on a hunter, an undead mage specialty spell. Other adventurers tried to attack the monster, causing it to summon more undead and flee quickly. Hope knew exactly where it had gone because of the detection skill.
Hope followed it and reached where it was hiding.
Species: Lich
Class: Necromancer
Status: Undead
Health: -1180/-1120
Mana: 3056/4000
Strength: 30
Defense: 40
Agility: 8
Luck: 10
Intelligence: 20
Skills: 0
Mana Stone: 0
Items: 1
Hope: "Wow, that's a high-class monster, and it has an item. Maybe if I somehow kill it, I can get the item. With its health, I think I can kill it."
Hope moved near the Lich, unnoticed. When Hope moved into range to attack it, the Lich noticed him and summoned 30+ skeletons: mages, warriors, lancers, and skeleton horsemen.
Hope knew he was trapped and used camouflage and Dash to escape. But he got hit by the Lich's curse chain, and skeleton mages used lightning magic on him. The curse chain emerged from the ground, dealing continuous damage, binding his body with the electrocution. Hope felt like he is frying up from inside, dealing damage continuously.
Hope: "Lightning magic. I have a bad experience with lightning magic." After saying that, Hope threw the daggers down and used all his remaining points for defense and strength, pulling with all his might to break free from some of the chains, and there were some chains in his hand. He used the chain to pull out a huge rock from the ground, swinging it to kill some skeletons. But when the rock reached the Lich, it got destroyed by the Lich's destruction magic.
The Lich started to move toward Hope. Hope realized he was in danger; he didn't know what to do; he thought his plan would work, but it got destroyed. He saw the bodies of skeletons he killed near him and used Eater to increase his stats to break free and escape.
When he said Eater, the purple-black teeth not only devoured the skeletons Hope killed but also the undead, including the Lich, who screamed while the skill devoured him.
Hope fell backward and said, "I forgot the Eater skill will not work on the living, but the undead are dead." Hope saw an item remained there; he picked it up. Hope moved to a nearby building for safety, opened a room, and used Appraisal. He saw:
Rank: A+
Name: Lich's Bone Ring
Class: Necromancer
Description: When pouring mana into it and summoning, the user can get +10 skeletons.
Hope: "I can't use this; only a Necromancer can. There are only 4 Necromancers in the whole wide world. It's a useless item. Wait, what if I used Eater on this? Maybe the class restriction won't work on me."
He used Eater on the ring.
A message popped up: Skill learned - Skeleton Summon Level F.
"I got Undead Summon, a class-restricted skill. I'm lucky."
Undead Summon F: Summon undead based on mana level. Rank will be varied based on level. The summons will be absolutely obedient to the user.
Hope: "Okay, then, activate summon."
Two skeletons appeared from a shadow. They were shabby and near broken state. Hope's mana dropped from 10 to 0. He realized it was 5 XP for 1 skeleton.
Species: Lower Ranked Skeleton
Class: None
Status: Undead
Health: -15/-20
Mana: 0/0
Strength: 3
Defense: 1
Agility: 1
Luck: 0
Intelligence: 0
Skills: 0
Mana Stone: 0
Items: 0
Hope: "With my mana, I can only summon 2. Okay, then, I need to increase my mana."
Hope used all his XP on mana, increasing it, then summoned 2 more skeletons.
Hope ordered: "Protect me while I rest." The 4 soldiers guarded Hope, and he used his Resting skill and said I need to get healing skills and increase my HP; if my HP dropped more, I would have been dead now.
Hope realized he left his daggers on the ground, so Hope ordered the skeleton to bring them to him; the skeleton ran and brought back the dagger. When the skeleton touched Hope's hand, a message popped up: Growth skill activated - combination possible, upgrading possible, repairing possible (auto repair over time or instant repair using XP).
Hope: "Wow, I can upgrade you too. And auto repair may be like my items. I occupy them, and my skeleton soldiers are connected to me. They are repaired automatically. I hit the jackpot with these skills. Not only do I have class-restricted skills, but I also have the power to strengthen them with other skills. First, let's kill the other monsters and get some XP. Then I can upgrade you all."
Hope and the skeleton soldiers searched and killed any low-level monsters they could find. The nearly damaged skeletons were on the brink of total collapse, but Hope's auto repair helped them a bit by repairing them.
And finally, they got enough XP. Hope upgraded one; the lower skeleton soldier turned into a low-level soldier.
Species: Low Ranked Skeleton
Class: None
Status: Undead
Health: -10/-30
Mana: 0/0
Strength: 6
Defense: 4
Agility: 3
Luck: 0
Intelligence: 0
Skills: 0
Mana Stone: 0
Items: 0
Hope: "There is only a small difference in upgrading. Let's try combining them."
When combining the 2 lower-ranked skeletons, the soldier became one with the same stats, but its HP was full.
Hope: "No difference in stats, but the HP increased. My two summons became one. If my proficiency of my skill increased, I can easily make more powerful skeletons."
"My skeleton's class is none. If I gave my mana stone to change class to him, will he change class to a warrior? Let's try this after getting some more class change stones."
Hope said this while touching the skeleton. "I wonder what else I can do with my skills." A message popped up saying: "Increase proficiency Requir 100 XP."
Hope: "My Growth and Eater skills are pretty much a weird skill, unlike other skills like fire manipulation and attack skills. These skills are on another level. I never heard of a skill that has multipurpose; not only will it allow the user to have skill and able to grow, maybe my skill may be a higher rank unique skill than others. But all this time, why does it say inherited skill? I need to concentrate now. From this point onwards, your skill can't surprise me; I'm too much surprised already. And to increase my proficiency of the skill, I need 100 XP. What's it for other skills? For appraisal, it's 200 XP. I got it; the proficiency XP ratio may be based on skill rank. And I only have 24 XP; I need to increase my XP and mana. I need to summon more skeletons."
Hope started to hunt more.
Stats
Species: ???
Class: None
Status: Normal
Health: 43/50
Mana: 1/26
Strength: 26
Defense: 28
Agility: 20
Luck: 25
Intelligence: 20
Skills: 8
XP: 0
Unallocated stats: 0
Skills
Dash F
Camouflage F
Appraisal E
Resting F
Growth
Eater
Blade Art F
Detection F
(Resonating Dungeon Break - when 2 or more dungeons in the same area break open, other dungeons also resonates with the break, removing the 7-day time limit, and this will spread across releasing Monsters.)