There was a distinct undertone in Morzan’s words.
Ethan asked directly, "What do you an?"
"Do you think you’re all that powerful now?"
The question made Ethan think of the ti he’d sliced a mutant into five pieces with a single strike. He nodded and said, "I’m decent, I guess. Not bad."
"Good. Keep that humility," Morzan said, completely ignoring Ethan’s self-satisfied tone.
He continued, "Your Core has just ford, and the roots of the sprout within it haven’t fully taken hold yet. It can’t draw energy from external sources. Didn’t you notice how it almost withered after you used that move?"
Ethan was stunned. He hadn’t noticed—mostly because he’d spent so long as an ordinary person that he’d never developed the habit of internal observation. But if Morzan said so, he wouldn’t lie. Ethan quickly asked, "How do I fix it? How do I make it draw energy?"
"Leaves pierce the Gate of Ascension, roots traverse countless worlds… For now, to have it pierce the Gate of Ascension, you’ll need to reach Level 45. For the roots to fully grow and absorb energy on their own, you’ll probably need to hit Level 60."
Morzan first recited these cryptic words, leaving Ethan utterly confused. But the explanation that followed made sense.
"Wait, what? Its growth is tied to my in-ga level?" Ethan exclaid, shocked.
It wasn’t unreasonable for him to be surprised. After all, the sprout had appeared in his Core after he awakened his energy in the real world. How could it be connected to the ga? This was sothing Ethan couldn’t wrap his head around.
"Of course it is, you idiot! Do you think your pathetic physique would’ve changed without the Ethereal World?" Morzan sounded genuinely annoyed.
In his mind, he was thinking, ’You brat, how can you be so clueless? If you were capable of greatness, would your past life have been such a disaster?’
Ethan felt a bit embarrassed when Morzan called him "pathetic." He was well aware of how weak his physique had been, but recent events had made him a little too confident.
"So, what should I do now?" Ethan asked humbly.
"Level up. If you want to survive what’s coming in five years, you’ll need to reach at least Level 200."
Ethan nodded, and Morzan fell silent.
Thinking about leveling up, Ethan’s thoughts drifted to Lyla. His mood soured, and he sighed.
He rembered the last ti he’d leveled up quickly—it was when she had unleashed a forbidden skill from her weapon, boosting him straight to Level 31. Later, after clearing an Expert-level dungeon, he’d gained three more levels, putting him at Level 34.
Now, the second and third players on the leaderboard had reached Level 33. Skyblade and his crew had been pushed down to fourth place and below.
Ethan’s expression darkened as he looked at the two nas.
Second Place: Overlord
Third Place: Dominus
Overlord—Ethan knew that na all too well. It was Zachary, the man who had betrayed him in his past life. Not only had Zachary pretended to be his friend, but he’d also stolen Ethan’s girlfriend. Even worse, to get his hands on the Wishbound Relic in Ethan’s inventory, Zachary had orchestrated an assassination attempt in both the real world and the ga.
In the real world, Lyla had shown up just in ti to save Ethan, but he’d lost both legs and lived like a stray dog afterward.
After his rebirth, Ethan had clashed with Zachary in the Starter Zone, dismantling his Unity Hall guild and screwing him over with a land deal. Zachary had retaliated during Slashblade’s wedding, when snipers had ambushed Ethan and his friends on the rooftop. If it hadn’t been for Celeste showing up and saving them, things could’ve ended badly.
Later, Ethan had told Celeste about Zachary and ntioned that he was a spy for Serpent Isle. Celeste had used the resources of the Ninth Division to investigate, but the feedback she received was that Zachary was just an ordinary student.
As for Dominus, Ethan didn’t have much of a reaction at first. But upon closer inspection, he realized this was soone he knew—Trent, the guy he’d sent a team of rogues to chase back to the Starter Zone. Trent had been his college classmate and had bullied him relentlessly in his past life.
Ethan was surprised to see Trent, who’d been killed and sent back to the Starter Zone, now sitting at second place on the leaderboard. Had he stumbled upon so kind of rare opportunity? That had to be it—otherwise, there was no way he could’ve reached Level 30 so quickly.
It was almost laughable—both of his enemies were hot on his heels, climbing the leaderboard at an alarming pace.
Scrolling further down the leaderboard, another na caught his eye.
Eighth Place: Executioner
Great. Now even more of his enemies were popping up on the leaderboard.
A sense of urgency washed over him. He closed the leaderboard and started organizing his inventory. To his surprise, he noticed that the Prismatic Stone had multiplied—there were now two of them. Apparently, the strange stone could ’reproduce’ inside his inventory.
He pulled out a pile of stones and fed them to the Prismatic Stone until it was so full it refused to eat any more. Satisfied, he tossed it back into his inventory and restocked on essentials at his potion shop.
"Put together a team. Let’s run an Easy-level dungeon to grind so levels," Ethan ssaged Skyblade.
"We’ve already started. You’ll have to find your own team or form one. By the way, before I entered the dungeon, I saw a lot of guildmates forming parties. You could join one of those," Skyblade replied.
’Damn it…’ Ethan cursed under his breath. They’d started leveling without him.
As for Skyblade’s suggestion, Ethan thought about it for a mont but decided against it. Teaming up with guildmates would be more trouble than it was worth. If their skill level was too low, he’d feel bad about ditching them mid-dungeon. Spending an entire night stuck in an Easy-level dungeon wasn’t his idea of efficient leveling.
Joining a random pickup group (PUG) was a better option. If things went south, he could just leave without any guilt—after all, he didn’t know any of them personally.
What Ethan didn’t realize was that Easy-level dungeons did take all night to clear, that was just the reality of the current state of the ga. In fact, most groups couldn’t even finish the dungeon in one night.
Player skill levels were all over the place. The more competent players were usually part of guild teams, leaving the PUGs to the less skilled—or the skilled but overly arrogant players who couldn’t fit into guild dynamics and chose to go solo.
Arriving at the dungeon entrance, Ethan scanned the recruitnt ssages being spamd in the chat.
Why are the requirents so low?
The ads were barely eting the minimum requirents for clearing an Easy-level dungeon. Ethan hid his na and level and joined a few groups to check out their gear. Unsurprisingly, their equipnt was as diocre as their recruitnt ads suggested.
Frustrated, he left those groups and kept searching. Finally, he found a team with slightly higher requirents. Ethan sent them his stats, making sure to equip so average gear instead of his high-tier items.
Once he joined the group, he thought they seed decent enough and decided to give them a shot.
But as soon as he entered, soone piped up.
NoMoreCandy: "Who the hell is this guy? Hiding his na and level? Trying to be all mysterious, huh?"
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Ethan knew the comnt was directed at him. The rest of the team was from the sa guild, and he was the only outsider. Plus, he was hiding his na and level.
The team had too many lee classes, so they were looking for a ranged DPS. Ethan had applied as a Balance Druid, and thanks to his high stats, the party leader had accepted him.
Ethan ignored the comnt, treating it as background noise. He quickly added NoMoreCandy to his block list, muting him.
He thought that would be the end of it, but a few seconds later, the party leader sent him a private ssage.
"Hey, did you block NoMoreCandy? Uh… would you mind revealing your na and level? Just to keep things transparent."
Ethan sighed. He knew NoMoreCandy was stirring up trouble. He unblocked the guy just in ti to see another ssage pop up.
NoMoreCandy: "This idiot’s probably the product of inbreeding. Who the hell plays a trash-tier spec like Balance Druid? What a loser."
Ethan’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of anger passing through them. He could handle being insulted—he’d just ignore it. But when soone dragged his family into it, that crossed a line.
He had been planning to keep a low profile, but if the team required him to reveal his na and level, he was willing to do so. However, NoMoreCandy’s constant trash talk and personal insults had pushed him too far.
What was supposed to be a simple leveling session had turned into sothing much more complicated. Today wasn’t going to end peacefully…!
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