[Would you like to use your existing avatar or create a new one?]
Aelion's eyes narrowed. The offer was a trap, a siren's call of past glory.
To take the Aetherius avatar would be to step back into a skin of predefined power, to carry the achievements of the old game into the new realm.
It was the safe, logical choice. The powerful choice.
But Aelion Velthane had never been safe. He had sacrificed his body for his sister. He had rebuilt an empire from the shadows. He had shattered the 100th floor and faced down a celestial being. He had been tempered by white flame.
He had not come this far to be a mere continuation. He had come to transcend.
Without a single moment of hesitation, his finger stabbed the second option.
[Create a new one.]
The moment the choice was made, the avatar of Aetherius dissolved. It didn't vanish; it unraveled into a billion motes of golden light, like a constellation disintegrating.
The achievements, the levels, the stats—all of it was deconstructed into its base code and scattered into the void.
Then, the void reacted. From within him, responding to his will, the white flame erupted.
It was not the destructive inferno from the arena, but a purifying, creative fire. It surged out of his chest, the seed at his core glowing like a miniature star.
The flames wrapped around the dissolving motes of his old avatar, not to consume them, but to refine them, to burn away the impurities of the old game's system, to strip them down to their purest essence.
The fire then condensed, pulling back into the reflection in the mirror—into his body. It was a violent, agonizingly beautiful process. He watched in the mirror as the flames seared through his seated form, not destroying it, but rebuilding it. The wheelchair melted away into nothingness. His atrophied legs straightened, muscle and sinew weaving themselves anew under skin that glowed with internal light. It was not the idealized form of Aetherius; it was his form, but perfected. Whole. For the first time in over a decade, he was standing on his own two feet, not in a dream, but in a new reality.
The fire subsided, leaving him standing tall in the void, his body humming with a familiar, yet entirely new, potential.
A command, instinctual and unbidden, formed in his mind. He willed his status screen to appear.
It materialized before him, but it was unlike any status screen he had ever seen. The font was plainer, the design more utilitarian, yet the information it held was staggering.
[Name: Aelion]
[Level: 0]
[Talents: Purity Sage Physique(EX rank), Seed of End(S Rank)]
[Main Class: Priest of End, Empty]
[Sub class: Empty]
[Profession: Empty, Empty]
[Stats:
Strength: 10 (Stat limit: 330)
Constitution: 10 (Stat Limit: 330)
Agility: 10 (Stat Limit: 330)
Dexterity: 10 (Stat Limit: 330)
Charisma: 10 (Stat Limit: 330)
Will: 10 (Stat Limit: 330)
Intelligence: 10 (Stat Limit: 330)]
[Skills: Fire Magic, Ice Magic, Thunder Magic, Life Leech]
Aelion's eyes, sharp and analytical, scanned the screen. His name was his own. His level was reset to zero, as expected.
The Talents were the first shock—two of them, already unlocked, with ranks that defied the normal scale.
The 'Purity Sage Physique' sounded like a result of the white flame's purification. The 'Seed of End' was clearly the seed that was condensed by the time the purification process completed.
The classes and professions were empty slates, waiting to be filled.
Then he saw the stats. Base ten in everything. Standard. But next to each one was a parenthetical note that made his breath catch.
(Stat limit: 330)
Limits? In Legend of Dungeons, stats could be raised infinitely with enough time and effort.
A hard cap was an entirely new, and frustrating, concept. It meant a finite ceiling on power.
It meant that raw grinding would not be the path to supremacy.
Strategy, allocation, and the power of his Talents would be everything.
Finally, his gaze fell to the skills section.
His eyes narrowed, a slow smile of profound understanding spreading across his features.
There they were. Not listed as [Engraved], but simply there, as innate parts of his being, carried over not as data, but as soul-deep knowledge.
Fire Magic. Ice Magic. Thunder Magic. Life Leech.
They had not been erased with his old avatar.
The white flame had not destroyed them; it had transmuted them.
It had burned away the game's system of cooldowns and mana costs and carved the fundamental principles of these powers directly into the fabric of his new existence.
He had not lost his old power. He had been reborn with it as his foundation.
He was level zero. He had a class he didnt even know about. He had no profession.
But he was Aelion Velthane. And he had a world to conquer all over again.
Aelion's mind, a whirlwind of calculations and newfound parameters, focused on the other monumental entry in his status. He willed the details of the Purity Sage Physique to unfold.
The text expanded, its descriptions stark and utterly game-breaking.
[Purity Sage Physique (EX rank)]
[Effect 1: Dual Profession Constitution]
[Effect 2: All Treasure Effects Doubled]
[Effect 3: No Limit on Consumption of Treasures]
[Effect 4: All Impurities Are Expelled From The Body]
[Drawback: Cannot Level Up]
A cold, profound shock, unlike any he had felt even in combat, lanced through Aelion's mind. The benefits were staggering, world-shattering. Two professions. Doubled treasures. No consumption limits. A body of pure potential. It was the toolkit of a god.
But the drawback…
He could not level up.
The words echoed in the silent void of his consciousness. Leveling up was the fundamental mechanic of every game he had ever known.
It was the primary, the only path to increasing base stats, to unlocking new tiers of power, to progressing. What was the point of having stat limits if he had no way to reach them? A cold knot of frustration tightened in his gut.
For a terrifying second, he felt the walls of a new, more insidious prison closing around him.
'What is the use?' he thought, his analytical mind reeling. 'How does one grow stronger without levels?'
He stood there in the formless void, contemplating the paradox. The EX-rank talent was a mountain of potential with a bottomless chasm at its center. He had traded the well-trodden path for a sheer cliff face.
Minutes stretched into what felt like an eternity as he dissected the problem. And then, the frustration began to melt away, replaced by a dawning, exhilarating understanding. The system hadn't broken him; it had changed the game.
He concluded that the answer wasn't on the path. It was off it entirely. He could not gain stats through experience points. Therefore, he had to find every other conceivable way to increase them.
Stat-boosting treasures. Permanent elixirs. Divine blessings. Hidden quest rewards. The Purity Sage Physique was not a curse; it was a directive.
It was forcing him onto a path of quality over quantity, of seeking out the rarest power-ups in the world and consuming them without limit, their effects doubled. His growth would not be a steady incline, but a series of massive, seismic leaps.
He also finally understood the source of the two empty profession slots in his status. It was the first effect of this incredible, terrifying talent.
Emboldened, he turned his focus to the other mystery. He opened the details of the Seed of End.
[Seed of End (S rank)(Growth)]
[Effect 1: Dual Class Constitution]
[Effect 2: Class - 'Priest of End' (Auto-equipped)]
[Effect 3: Can Convert Other Energies into 'Power of End' to Nurture the Seed.]
A slow, fierce grin spread across Aelion's face, banishing the last vestiges of shock.
A growth-type Talent. This changed everything. The Seed was not a static reward; it was a living thing within him, something to be fed, nurtured, and grown. It provided the second piece of the puzzle: a Dual Class system, and had automatically filled one slot with the enigmatic 'Priest of End' class.
His power would not come from a level number next to his name, but from the evolution of this Seed and the accumulation of raw, converted energy.
The revelation was liberating. Since he had no need to chase experience points, why bother checking the details of his auto-assigned class right now? It was a tool, and he would learn its functions through use. The 'Priest of End' would be defined by his actions, not a description in a menu.
He stood in the void, waiting, his new body thrumming with untapped potential, his mind already racing through the implications of his unique, pathless journey.
Then, the notification he was waiting for arrived, its text a gateway to everything.
[Euloria will still be sealed for 5 months and 2 weeks]
[Do you want to enter the Sublimation Realm?]
His grin widened into a thing of sharp, anticipatory joy. The main game was locked away for half a year, its players asleep at the starting line. But he held the key to a realm beyond.
Without a single moment of hesitation, his decision echoing his every defining choice, he selected Yes.
______
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