Raze grew up looking at professions the way a starving man looks at distant tables.
He knew they existed.
He knew they could change fate.
But they were not his… not yet.
Martial schools were surrounded by high walls.
Their guards were ruthless.
Their students wore clean clothes that had nothing in common with poor districts.
Raze sneaked near them like a shadow.
He did not enter.
He did not ask.
He did not get seen.
He only listened.
"A profession is not just a weapon," one instructor said in a firm voice.
"It is a way of thinking."
They explained the differences with cold precision:
A warrior accumulates power in the body.
A mage trades the body for control over elements.
An archer lives and dies by distance.
A healer lives with endless debts.
Then came the topic everyone lowered their voice for.
The execution choice.
"Don't be fooled," another teacher said.
"This is not a hidden path or a test of courage."
"Whoever chooses it… dies."
When a student asked about those who survived,
the teacher smiled strangely
and changed the subject.
Raze memorized every word.
Not only with his mind… but with his bones.
In the training yards,
he watched children close to his age.
They struck.
They got struck.
They stood up.
Their bodies took shape.
Their movements grew sharp.
Their breathing became controlled.
He saw the difference.
The difference between those who had a chance…
and those born outside the game.
At night,
he tried to imitate them.
He punched the air like he had seen.
He copied stances whose names he didn't know.
He fell… stood up… then fell again.
He trained until he fainted.
Until pain and exhaustion became the same thing.
Until only one thought remained in his head:
I must be ready.
Sometimes Camellia sat on a nearby rock,
watching him in silence.
Sometimes…
she came down.
She copied his moves clumsily.
She laughed when he fell.
She tried to run with him,
even if only for a few seconds.
She would hold her chest, gasping for air,
while he…
smiled.
"When I get a strong profession," he told her once,
looking at the horizon,
"I'll see the whole world.
Forests we don't know,
cities people like us can't enter,
things people are afraid to name."
He paused,
then added in a lower voice:
"I won't be worthless anymore."
Camellia didn't answer.
She knew…
that dreams in this world
are often buried with their owners.
One day,
while training in the distant mountains,
Raze heard a sharp boom.
Not a rock.
Not a beast.
The sound of power.
He moved carefully.
Hid between the trees.
Climbed one thick with branches.
And there…
he saw them.
Two people.
The first was massive,
his body tight like stone,
holding a huge axe,
as if iron was meant to cling to his hands.
The second…
leaner,
wearing a strange robe,
his eyes shining with inhuman coldness.
The air was charged.
Even the birds were silent.
They were arguing angrily,
but the words broke apart in Raze's ears…
except one.
The large man shouted, his voice shaking the mountains:
"Karvin, you filthy mage!
Do you know how many of us fell?
How much blood was spilled just to get that fruit?!"
He tightened his grip on the axe until the metal screeched.
"Most of the party died,
and those who survived…
you poisoned with your own hands!"
He stepped forward, his voice turning into a roar.
"We sacrificed everything,
and you…
you drank our comrades' blood
to take the prize alone!"
He spat on the ground.
"You don't deserve to be called human,
you bastard."
Raze froze in the tree.
For the first time…
he wasn't hearing about professions.
He was seeing them.
And for the first time…
he understood that power
does not always create heroes.
Sometimes…
it only creates monsters.
Karvin smiled.
It was not a smile of victory.
Not the smile of a madman.
It was the smile of someone who buried regret alive long ago… and stood on its grave.
He spoke calmly, his voice flowing like slow poison:
"The age of humanity is over, Jack."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"Morals?"
He chuckled softly.
"They were a valid currency… when death was an exception."
He gestured around them, to the forest, the rotting corpses, the poisoned air.
"Today, death stalks us in every breath, every step, every hesitation."
He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with open greed.
"If you don't increase your power… by any means… you'll be crushed. Ground down. Forgotten."
His voice grew deeper, dirtier, like a whispered cosmic secret:
"And you, Jack, come to me with all these naive principles…"
He gave a crooked, disgusting smile.
"But what you really want… is the vitality fruit."
A short, cold laugh escaped him.
"Don't lie to yourself."
"The only difference between you and me… is that I admit my greed."
Jack did not answer.
He did not argue.
He did not insult him.
He did not justify himself.
He simply tightened his grip on the massive axe.
In the next moment,
a faint blue aura burst from his body,
as if the air itself pulled back in respect for a newly born power.
Raze, hanging above, felt his heart sink into his stomach.
He knew it without being told.
Without anyone explaining.
This was mana.
The energy that separates humans…
from what comes after humans.
Karvin laughed.
A laugh without sound. Without life.
"Oh?" he said mockingly.
"Looks like you miss your party…"
Then he added, his tone soaked in death:
"And you want to join them quickly."
Without warning—
he raised his hand.
A green acidic sphere formed, fist-sized, boiling with lethal energy, its surface corroding as if it wanted to melt the world itself.
It fired.
Not like a spell.
Like an execution bullet.
Jack moved.
Not a jump.
Not a human dodge.
An instinctive, inhuman burst that twisted the air.
The sphere passed by his body
and struck the massive tree behind him.
It did not explode.
It melted.
The wood collapsed, flowed, leaving a hole the size of a human head.
The surrounding area kept dissolving, rippling… as if the tree were living flesh being digested.
Raze froze.
One thought smashed into his mind:
If that hit me… nothing would remain.
But Jack didn't stop.
He charged at Karvin like a beast freed from its cage, the axe screaming through the air.
Karvin retreated instantly.
He knew.
Close combat was a death sentence.
He raised his hand again.
A second sphere.
Then a third.
Jack barely avoided them, his enhanced senses saving him at the last moment, his body twisting unnaturally.
Karvin seized a single opening.
He stomped the ground.
The air… rotted.
A thick, choking toxic fog spread, as if the forest itself released its last breath.
Trees cracked.
Leaves blackened and fell.
The ground burned with acidic stench.
Jack stopped for a moment.
Discomfort.
Then… absolute focus.
The blue aura around him shrank, condensed, clung to his body like a thin curtain, a living armor.
Then—
he vanished.
Raze didn't see him move.
He only saw him… appear in front of Karvin.
The axe came down.
A full tree was cut like dry paper.
Karvin barely avoided it, but blood exploded from his shoulder.
Jack gave him no chance.
One strike.
Then another.
Then a third.
The ground shook.
Trunks shattered.
The air split.
Karvin fought back.
Poisoned touches.
Air that melted skin.
Spells exploding near Jack's body.
In a deadly close moment, Karvin's fingers touched Jack's arm.
A toxic touch.
Jack roared.
The poison pierced the armor.
The blue aura shook… and turned green.
But Jack continued.
A kick that shattered the ground.
A strike that split the air.
The axe dug a deep crater.
The forest was no longer a forest.
It was an execution ground.
After time lost meaning…
They stood.
Jack:
his armor fragile, pale, pierced,
his body covered in corroded wounds,
his breath poisoned,
his eyes red with pain.
Karvin:
bleeding, deeply wounded, his robe torn,
but his eyes… cold as death.
Jack charged.
A final strike.
Fatal.
Karvin barely avoided it—
but his hand was severed.
At the same moment,
a kick with all of Jack's remaining strength.
Karvin flew dozens of meters.
Raze held his breath.
But—
the severed hand…
Did not fall.
It exploded.
A devastating toxic cloud swallowed everything.
Trees melted.
The ground evaporated.
The air burned.
Jack emerged…
Deformed.
His skin corroding.
His body collapsing.
He didn't understand.
In the next moment—
an acidic sphere
hit his face
like an execution bullet.
His head melted.
He fell.
No sound.
No resistance.
Dead.
Raze did not move.
Did not scream.
Did not vomit.
He simply… understood.
Professions are not titles.
Not dreams.
They are…
different ways to kill.
And in that moment,
something new was born inside him.
Not fear.
But hunger for power.