Tri-ting
[Corrupted Core Spirit eliminated]
[+500 Corrupted Souls]
Level Up!
Level Up!
[Limitbreaking In Progress.]
[Player has reached the Grade's plateau]
[Levelling is prohibited during the Progress.]
[0/100]
"What now?"
Limitbreak?
What does that mean? Of course he knew the definition of the word, but what does the system meant by that. And what's that about unable to level up.
None of it made any sense, though his regret for no reading the system's manual. As much as it bother him, he remembered buying the ring now, that might cancel his curiosity.
He slide down leaning against the cave wall, fingers swiping to the "Shop tab".
The familiar grid appeared, as items blinked in rows he glanced at countless times.
His eyes moved past them, aiming straight for the ring.
It was small and thin, small enough to fit between his sister's fingers. And it had a dark purple round gem that was accompanied by two dark jaw bones.
[Wayfinder's Ring]
Type: Accessory- Teleportation Ring
Effect: Enables spatial displacement to random locations
Cost:300 Corrupted Souls
Level Requirement: 15
"Finally," he murmured.
Three hundred souls. He has more than than now, enough to pay the price and still have something left over to buy more items.
And yet his hand didn't move.
He stared at the number beneath the item.
Cost: 300
All his hard work registered in numbers of dead souls. And yet, he kept doing it wondering if it might work. What if it doesn't teleport him back to earth, maybe it might just be a ring that teleports him around the Corrupted lands in even dangerous areas.
He exhaled slowly, his breath rattling in his lungs. If the system wanted to kill him, it already had plenty of chances. It had pushed him, guided him, stripped him of hesitation piece by piece until survival was all that remained.
Believing in it wasn't faith, it was necessity.
[Confirm Purchase?]
[Yes] / [No]
His finger hovered over, and for a fleeting moment, Mira's face crossed his mind.
"I am not staying here," he said quietly. "Not after all this."
Tri-ring!
[Purchase Complete]
[-300 Corrupted Souls]
[Remaining Corrupted Souls: 499]
A sharp sensation shot through his hand, not pain exactly, but pressure as if something had locked itself around his finger from the inside out.He instinctively clenched his hand, and just when he raised it, the ring was there, perfectly fitting his finger.
"Wow!"
*********
Moments passed by, Kaito did not activate the ring immediately.
He stayed longer than he needed to, the ring rested quietly on his finger, dormant, patient, as if it understood that this moment could not be rushed. Instead activating it, he stepped past the cave's mouth and walked out into the open, letting the fog swallow him halfway before thinning again.
The land stretched endlessly in every direction, he passed a jagged crystal formations rising like the bones of something long dead. The ground beneath his feet was uneven as always, scarred by cracks formed from energy surges and impacts that he caused. Even now, faint tremors passed through the earth at irregular intervals, distant reminders that the Corrupted Lands never truly slept.
He walked slowly, every step deliberate. His facial expression was calmer than always.
"This is where it started," he murmured.
A stretch of ground ahead was darker than the rest, stained almost permanently violet. He recognized it instantly. His first hunt. His first kill. He could still remember how his hands had shaken afterward, how the smell of corrupted flesh had clung to him long after the system claimed the poison had been neutralized. Back then, he had been terrified, weak, and hungry in ways that went beyond his stomach.
Further out lay a shallow trench carved into the ground, not by water, but by repeated impacts. This was where he had barely escaped after misjudging his Core Energy output, where fatigue had nearly dragged him down and left him exposed. He remembered crawling away on his elbows, vision swimming, convinced that if he stopped moving even for a second, he would die there and be forgotten.
More scars revealed as he carried on walking. Burn marks where blue energy had detonated too close. Boulders he had used as cover. Places where he had hidden, held his breath, suppressed everything he was just to avoid being noticed.
A distant rumble echoed faintly through the ground. But far from where he was, far enough to remind him of the herds, of synchronized footsteps and rituals he still didn't fully understand. His muscles tensed out of instinct before he forced himself to relax.
And yet one thing was clear they are not coming for him now.
He stopped walking and turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. This world had stripped him down to the barest version of himself. It had forced him to eat what should never be eaten, fight until exhaustion blurred into numbness, and trust a system he barely understood because the alternative was death.
And yet…
He looked down at his hands.
They were steady.
Stronger than before, not just physically. Something inside him had changed, hardened, sharpened. The fear was still there, but it no longer ruled him. He had learned how to endure. How to move forward even when survival was the only reward.
Kaito exhaled and turned back toward the cave.
Each step reminded him of everything he had gone through, as though the world wanted to show him how much he had grown. When he reached the entrance, he paused, one hand resting against the stone, eyes tracing the cave.
Near the end of the cave, where he used to rest after barely surviving, light violet light glimmered from embedded crystals.
Core Crystals.
He crouched before them, fingers hovering before contact. Up close, they were beautiful in a quiet, unsettling way.
"Guess I can't leave empty-handed."
He stored the in his inventory, one by one, vanishing from his hands.
[Item Acquired: Core Crystal (Unrefined)]
[Item Acquired: Core Crystal (Unrefined)]
[Item Acquired: Core Crystal (Unrefined)]
When he was done, he straightened and looked around the cave again. Indeed, the cave was cold, but it had been the closest thing to safety he'd known in this place. He slept here hungry, exhausted, and bleeding. He had hidden here when the world outside thundered with monsters beyond his limits. And yet he planned, rested and rebuilt himself within this walls.
"Thanks."
The words felt rather strange than just words.
Kaito stepped back outside.
"This is it," he murmured. "I am finally going home."
And with that, he concentrated a bit of his energy, powering the ring, it's dark purple gem responded by shining brighter than every crystal he seen.
Then, without looking back he raised his hand, light blooming as it swallowed him whole.