My smile faded. A plan began to form in the cold, logical part of my brain, the part that organized raid schedules and calculated optimal gear loadouts. A cheat skill is only as good as its user. Having God Mode doesn't mean anything if you just stand around admiring the scenery.
Step one in any new game: find the weakest thing you can, and kill it.
I walked toward the sound of running water I'd heard earlier. The new body was great. No creaking knees, no shortness of breath. Just smooth, efficient movement. I found a small, clear stream bubbling over smooth stones. And next to it, wobbling slightly on the mossy bank, was my target.
It was a slime. Of course it was a slime. It was a perfect, translucent blue teardrop of a monster, about the size of a throw pillow. It jiggled. It was the tutorial enemy, the walking, or rather, hopping, bag of 1 XP that every game designer on earth seemed to agree was the perfect introduction to combat.
It was pathetic. I loved it.
I needed a weapon. My eyes scanned the forest floor. A few feet away lay a fallen branch, about as thick as my wrist and long enough to give me some reach. It was crude, but it would do. I picked it up, testing its weight. It felt solid. Good enough for smacking jelly.
I approached the slime. It didn't seem to notice me, or if it did, it didn't care. It was probably contemplating the philosophical implications of being a sentient gelatinous blob. I raised the branch over my shoulder, taking a simple batter's stance. This felt ridiculous. Here I was, a reincarnated human with a reality-breaking skill, about to beat a puddle of goo to death with a stick.
I swung.
The branch connected with a wet thwack. The slime quivered, and a chunk of it splattered onto the grass. And at the exact moment of impact, I heard that beautiful, beautiful sound.
Ding.
[Through the action of striking an enemy with a blunt object, a new skill has been created.]
[Blunt Weapon Mastery Lv. 1 acquired!]
There it was. Proof of concept. A surge of cold, electric joy shot through me, the kind I only ever got when a rare mount dropped or an exploit I'd found actually worked. This was real.
The slime, now slightly smaller, hopped weakly toward me in what I assumed was a counter-attack. I swung again, and again. It was like beating a water balloon with a stick. After the fourth hit, the slime popped with a faint squelch, dissolving into nothingness and leaving behind a single, copper-colored coin on the ground.
Another screen popped up.
[You have defeated a Level 1 Blue Slime.]
[You have gained 5 Experience Points.]
[You have reached Level 2!]
[You have 5 unspent stat points.]
I ignored the coin and immediately pulled up my status. The level-up was nice, but the stat points were the real prize. Five points. I thought for a moment. Early game, the best investment is always your main damage stat or survivability. I was using a branch, which was Strength-based. And I was squishy.
I dumped three points into Strength and two into Stamina.
[Strength: 8]
[Stamina: 7]
I could almost feel the change. A subtle jolt of new energy in my muscles. A sense of sturdiness that wasn't there a minute ago. It was intoxicating.
I needed more.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
I followed the stream, my new club resting on my shoulder. A few hundred yards downstream, the forest opened up into a wide, sun-drenched meadow. And it was crawling with them. Dozens of blue slimes, all jiggling aimlessly. And among them, a few other classic starter mobs: Goblins. They were small, green-skinned creatures with pointy ears and crude loincloths, armed with jagged rocks or sharpened sticks. A perfect little newbie field. A spawn point.
My gamer instincts, honed by two decades of sleepless nights and caffeine abuse, took complete control. This wasn't a beautiful meadow; it was a resource node. Those weren't creatures; they were walking bags of XP.
The grind began.
I started with the slimes. Thwack. Pop. Ding. Another 5 XP. I moved to the next one. Thwack. Pop. Ding. My movements were efficient, mechanical. No wasted energy. I wasnât fighting; I was farming. After the tenth slime, another notification.
[Blunt Weapon Mastery has reached Lv. 2.]
My swings felt a little faster, a little more accurate. The branch seemed to land exactly where I wanted it to.
Then I took on a goblin. It saw me coming and let out a high-pitched shriek, charging with its sharpened stick. It was faster than the slimes, and it actually tried to fight back. It jabbed at me, and I sidestepped, the clumsy attack whistling past. My Agility was only 5, but the goblin's was probably 3. I brought my branch down on its head. It staggered, and I hit it again. It fell, dissolving just like the slime and leaving two copper coins and a tattered piece of cloth.
[You have defeated a Level 3 Forest Goblin.]
[You have gained 12 Experience Points.]
More XP. Good.
Hours passed. The sun crawled across the sky. My world shrank to the rhythm of the grind: approach, swing, kill, loot, repeat. The blue screens became a constant, comforting presence.
Ding. [You have reached Level 5!]
Ding. [Blunt Weapon Mastery has reached Lv. 4.]
Ding. [You have reached Level 10!]
Level 10. In any normal game, this would be a milestone. The point where you leave the starting zone and get your first class advancement. Here, it was just another number flashing on the screen before I moved on to the next goblin. There was no slowdown in XP gain. No soft cap. The numbers just kept climbing.
I started experimenting. I put the branch down and punched a slime. My fist sank into its gelatinous body.
Ding. [Through the action of striking an enemy with your bare hands, a new skill has been created.]
[Unarmed Combat Lv. 1 acquired!]
I picked up a rock a goblin had dropped and hurled it at another one.
Ding. [Through the action of throwing an object at an enemy, a new skill has been created.]
[Throwing Lv. 1 acquired!]
It was that simple. That abusable.
The sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. My linen shirt was stained with dirt and slime residue. My arm, which should have been jelly after swinging a branch for half a day, felt fine thanks to my ever-increasing Stamina.
I killed one last goblin, and the familiar notification chimed.
[You have reached Level 20!]
[You have 5 unspent stat points.]
Level 20. In a single afternoon. I knew from my obsessive reading of the genre that this kind of progress was supposed to take months, maybe even a year for a casual adventurer. I'd done it before my first dinner.
I leaned against a tree, breathing heavily not from exhaustion, but from the sheer, overwhelming sense of power. I pulled up my status one last time.
[Name: Stephen]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Novice]
[Level: 20]
[HP: 115/115]
[MP: 55/55]
[Stats]
[Strength: 30]
[Agility: 15]
[Stamina: 30]
[Intelligence: 10]
[Wisdom: 10]
[Luck: 5]
[Unspent Stat Points: 5]
[Skills]
[System's Favor (Unique)]
[Blunt Weapon Mastery (Lv. 7)]
[Unarmed Combat (Lv. 2)]
[Throwing (Lv. 2)]
I looked at the screen, at the numbers that shouldn't be possible. A smile touched my lips.
This was, without a doubt, the best job Iâve ever had.