Daniel and Klav trained daily, alternating between refining their mana and working on real martial arts. Daniel, whose mana was critically low, focused on refining it, concentrating his mind and drawing out every trace he could sense within his body. According to his window, his MP was still only three points, far below what he needed.
Klav, in contrast, had enough mana to activate his inborn skill, but he lacked the stamina to maintain it. He could barely last a minute in combat before collapsing from exhaustion. At Daniel's suggestion, Klav dedicated his training to building endurance and strength. Daniel told him the truth—no matter how powerful your skill may be, if you cannot stay on your feet long enough to use it, you are dead weight.
Klav dropped to the ground to perform push-ups. He struggled, only managing ten, and even then his arms wobbled beneath him. His form was poor, and his elbows flared out awkwardly. Seeing that he was doing more harm than good, he switched to squats. This came more naturally to him. He lowered himself with control, held at the bottom, and then pushed back up while keeping tension in his muscles.
After a few rounds, he experimented with the range of motion. This time, instead of fully locking out his knees, he stopped just before straightening, then lowered again. The pain in his thighs and glutes intensified. He grunted through the repetitions, sweat dripping down his brow.
Then came the lunges. Walking lunges. Even Daniel winced watching him.
It was like doing cardio while lifting. Slow, punishing, relentless. Every forward step sent fire through his legs. His balance wavered at times, but he forced himself to keep going. He hated it. Daniel hated it too. No one enjoyed lunges. But Klav endured.
After finishing his cardio, Klav sat under the tree, gasping and drenched in sweat. Meanwhile, Daniel stirred from his meditative state. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stretched. He could feel something inside him shift, a faint hum just beneath his skin.
Opening his window, he confirmed it.
------
[Character Status]:
Name: Daniel Vaelwyn
Race: Human
Age: 5
Rank: D+
[Attributes]:
-> Strength: 20
-> Speed: 16
-> Durability: 20
-> MP: 5
-> INT: 20
[Skills]:
Absolute Lightblade (ZZZ-tier Awakened | Power: F-tier)
Allows the user to summon the True Blade of Light, crafted by Goddess of Light. The blade is made up of mana, which cannot be dispelled. The blade pierces all darkness, nullifies corrupted energy, and strikes with divine precision.
MP: 10,000
Passive Drain: 100 MP/min while active
------
Not bad, he thought. At least I can still grow in mana, even with my curses. But how do I remove them? That was the hard part. Saint Torren had warned him: these weren't ordinary curses. They could kill him at any moment. And if a Saint of Torren's caliber, the fifth strongest being in Enersia, feared the power of those curses, it meant they were beyond anything Daniel had faced in his past life.
The frustration bubbled in his chest. In his previous life, he hadn't even realized he was cursed. He had lived through hardship, betrayal, and humiliation, never understanding that something deeper was holding him back. Looking back, he should have asked for help. He should have gone to a library. He should have gone to the library.
The Library of Enersia, located in the capital city of Solbain, was the largest and most protected repository of magical and ancient knowledge in the world. Nations had tried to seize it, wage war over it, manipulate its keepers—but they had all failed. The King of Enersia had ensured the library would never fall into the wrong hands.
Had Daniel simply walked into the library in his last life, testified under truth-seeking magic, or demanded an audience with the Seer, he might have cleared his name. He might have uncovered his curses and done something about them. But he had been too proud, too angry, too convinced the world had turned its back on him.
"I have to go there," he whispered to himself. "The Library of Enersia. If I want a chance at lifting these curses... if I want to get stronger."
Klav might benefit too. He had once been a guard at the library before transferring the tower.
For now, though, it was time to train.
Daniel rose to his feet. His body was rested, and it was now his turn for physical training.
He started with push-ups. Unlike Klav, his form was impeccable. His elbows were tucked, his back flat, and his pace controlled. He pushed through sets of twenty, then thirty, before switching to squats. His legs already carried a latent strength—he could drop low, pause, and rise without losing balance or control.
Klav sat nearby, entering a meditative posture. His breathing slowed, his eyes closed. The air around him shimmered faintly as he began refining his mana. While his reserves were significantly larger than Daniel's, they were still raw and unrefined. It would take time, patience, and repetition.
Daniel lunged forward, then backward. His body flowed through each motion like water, precise and clean. Every repetition burned, but he smiled through the pain.
They had a long road ahead. But step by step, they were walking it together.
And neither of them planned to stop.
---
From above, invisible to every single human in the world, there was a being. A very distorted being. A towering abomination of malice and entropy.
It did not have a true name that could be spoken by mortal tongues, but it was known in forbidden tomes as a Rogue God. A discarded fragment of divinity, twisted beyond recognition, warped by hate, isolation, and the foul hunger for chaos.
Its silhouette alone was enough to drive sane men to madness—a shuddering mass of aberrant flesh, perpetually shifting in unnatural spasms. The being's body was cloaked in tattered layers of shadow-flesh, torn and flayed, revealing strips of glistening sinew pulsating with rotted magic. Bone jutted out at violent, illogical angles, splitting its own meat apart as it moved. Limbs protruded in dozens, like the legs of a spider stitched onto a man, some too long, curling into impossible loops, others ending in twisted stumps that drooled acidic bile.
Some appendages writhed as if with minds of their own, ending not in hands but in slavering, tooth-ringed maws—mouths that opened with labored, wet gasps, gnashing crooked, yellow fangs that clattered like windchimes made from broken glass.
Its skin was translucent in places, revealing a latticework of throbbing, blackened veins that pulsed with blood thick as tar. Maggots the size of thumbs slithered through exposed tissue, some emerging only to burrow back in, chewing through festering ulcers. Every second, its body rotted and healed, rotted and healed—a cycle of decay written into its biology, a punishment etched into its very existence.
Where eyes should have been, there were dozens of orbs scattered across its frame—some embedded in its chest, others growing out of its thighs, palms, and spine. They blinked out of sync, some oozing black tears, others wide open and unblinking, pupils dancing in spirals. One socket held a burning red flame instead of an eye. Another wept maggots.
Its head was crowned with horns—cracked, asymmetrical, twisted like the bones of ancient beasts warped by hatred. From its face yawned a gaping maw that split vertically from forehead to neck. There were no lips, just muscle and teeth, like someone had taken a butcher's knife to its face and let it heal wrong. Inside its throat, shadows twisted and hissed, chanting in an eldritch tongue that sounded like death gargling molten bone.
The stench it radiated defied imagination. Burning flesh, mildew, rotting eggs, excrement, and something worse—something primordial. The smell of time itself rotting.
It hovered above reality, weightless and massive, and wherever it drifted, the very air warped. The sky flickered. Clouds twisted into screaming faces. Trees below withered. Water curdled. Even the concept of gravity trembled around it.
It looked down upon the small mortal named Daniel.
"Why would boss want me to look at this impudent mortal?" the Rogue God muttered, its voice like wet stones grinding against a corpse's throat. It drooled pestilence, steaming wherever it landed. "I am a Rogue God. A being of transcendence. A shepherd of ruin. What is this child to me? A blink. A burp. A stain."
It grinned. Or perhaps it was simply that another mouth opened beneath the first, unhinging like a snake's jaw, filled with teeth that spun inside like drills.
"Maybe I should unmake him anyway," it mused aloud, and from its wrist-mouths, fingers emerged—fingers with eyeballs at the tips, twitching as if sniffing Daniel's soul. "Would he scream? Would his spirit flake away like ash if I peeled it from his flesh inch by inch? Would the Goddess of Light cry?"
It laughed. The laugh wasn't a sound. It was a vibration that made time skip.
"Maybe I'll whisper into his dreams, fill them with my children. Maybe I'll let them fester in his memories, so he forgets love, forgets safety. Maybe every time he blinks, he'll see me behind his eyelids. Maybe..."
And then the voice came. It was not loud. It was not angry. It was authoritative. Final. Timeless.
"Come back to me."
The Rogue God froze. The dozens of mouths across its body snapped shut. The eyes turned downward in terror.
It stuttered, gurgled, bowed its disgusting frame so low it nearly split in half. "Y-yes, my lo-lord."
The voice was gone.
The air returned to stillness. Reality stitched itself together slowly, hesitantly.
The Rogue God exhaled, though it had no lungs. Its entire body sagged with the weight of relief.
"I hate when he does that," it muttered, licking one of its own open wounds with a tentacle-like tongue. "So, the boy matters. Interesting."
It stared once more at Daniel. The boy didn't stir. Didn't even know he was being watched.
The Rogue God chuckled again, this time quieter. Crueler.
"Enjoy your peace, little maggot. It won't last."
And with a shuddering ripple in space, it vanished.