Infinite Awakening: 10,000x EXP Converter!

Seven Ironjaw Rats filled the rusted interior, their metal teeth caught the glowing light coming through cracks in the ceiling. The Nest Guardian crouched behind the overturned seats at the far end. Its wolf-sized body was coiled tight, dark eyes tracking every single one of Alvian’s movements with an intelligence that made his stomach drop.

A blue counter floated in the corner of his eye.

[Current Pool: 0 EXP]

He gripped the trench knife and stepped inside.

The first two rats came together through the broken doorway on the left. They squeezed into the narrow gap one after another, exactly the way he needed them to.

Alvian planted his feet and met the first rat’s lunge with a Clearwater Palm straight to its skull!

"Sssss!"

The acid hissed against metallic hide, softening the surface just enough. His trench knife followed instantly, punching through the weakened spot and into the brain.

The rat dropped.

[Ding! +25 EXP]

The second rat was right behind the first, jaws snapping at his knee. He kicked it hard in the snout, buying half a second, then drove the knife down into its neck. It thrashed. He twisted. It stopped.

[Ding! +25 EXP]

Two down. Five to go.

The third rat came through the shattered window on his right, completely bypassing the bottleneck. Its jaws clamped onto his calf.

Pain exploded up his leg! He felt the metal teeth scrape bone. His HP dropped by fourteen points in a single sickening flash. He staggered but didn’t fall. He slammed his palm onto the rat’s spine and channeled Clearwater Palm point blank.

The acid seeped through its hide into the muscle beneath. The rat’s jaws loosened just enough. He drove the knife through its eye.

[Ding! +25 EXP]

His calf was bleeding badly. Warm blood pooled inside his boot. No time to stop. The fourth and fifth rats attacked together in a coordinated pincer, one from the front, one from behind.

They were learning. They were hunting him.

Alvian threw himself backward onto the subway seats, barely avoiding the front rat’s lunge. The rear rat’s teeth snapped shut on empty air. He kicked the emergency exit lever behind him and the rear door burst open with a grinding screech, creating an escape route.

He rolled off the seats, stabbed the front rat through the gap between the seat cushions, and felt the blade sink home.

[Ding! +25 EXP]

The fifth rat tried to flee through the rear door. Alvian grabbed it by the tail, dragged it back onto the platform, and ended it with a brutal downward stab.

[Ding! +30 EXP]

Five down. Two to go.

The sixth rat was slightly larger, its metallic teeth thicker and more defined. It hesitated at the back of the car, watching him with calculating eyes. Alvian didn’t give it time to plan. He charged, slashed Clearwater Palm across its face to blind it temporarily, then buried the knife in its throat.

[Ding! +35 EXP]

Six down.

The Nest Guardian hadn’t moved.

It sat behind the overturned seats, exactly where it had been since the beginning. Its dark eyes had watched every single kill, every movement, every tactic. It had studied his patterns. It knew how he fought.

When Alvian stepped over the seats to face it, the Guardian didn’t charge. It waited. Jaws open. Patient.

Alvian removed his jacket and threw it.

The Guardian pounced on the fabric, jaws clamping down on empty cloth, and Alvian was already moving. He leaped onto its back, raised the trench knife with both hands, and drove it straight down through the back of the Guardian’s skull with every ounce of his Level 13 strength.

"Crack!"

The blade snapped at the hilt.

’huh’

The Guardian thrashed violently, throwing him off like a ragdoll. He crashed into the far wall of the subway car, felt a rib crack on impact, and hit the floor hard. The broken knife handle was still in his grip. The blade was buried in the Guardian’s skull but not deep enough.

The Guardian turned toward him. Blood and brain fluid oozed around the embedded blade. It was hurt. It was angry. And it was still very much alive.

It charged.

Alvian raised his palm. The Guardian’s open jaws filled his vision, metal teeth gleaming with his own blood still clinging to them from his calf wound.

[Clearwater Palm.]

He didn’t aim for the chitin. He aimed for the exposed wound around the broken knife. The corrosive water poured directly into the creature’s brain case through the crack in its skull. Acid met brain tissue.

The Guardian’s eyes went wide. Its jaws froze inches from his face. Its body convulsed, legs scrambling uselessly against the subway floor. Then it collapsed on top of him, dead.

[Ding! +50 EXP]

[Current Pool: 195 EXP]

Seven kills. One hundred ninety-five base EXP pooled. One roll.

Alvian lay pinned beneath the Guardian’s heavy corpse, bleeding from his calf, his ribs screaming, his body pushed to its absolute limit. He shoved the dead weight off and crawled to his knees.

The cosmic roulette wheel hovered in his vision, three dark reels pulsing with contained energy. Waiting.

He raised his hand.

"Spin."

The wheel ignited.

The reels slowed.

"Bang!" The first reel stopped. Gold.

"Bang!!" The second reel stopped. Gold.

"Bang!!!" The third reel shuddered, fought the brake, and locked.

Silver.

[Ding! Rare Roll! 470x Multiplier!]

[Lady Luck is smiling, perhaps she’s had a few drinks, but she’s smiling.]

[Distributing 91,650 EXP!]

’Ninety-one thousand six hundred and fifty EXP?!’

The number barely registered before the energy hit.

The Flesh Limit screamed.

[WARNING: HOST CHASSIS INTEGRITY CRITICAL.]

[VIT 28 Safe Absorption Capacity: ~3,000 EXP.]

[Excess: 88,650 EXP.]

[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.]

[Diverting overflow to EXP Bank.]

The pressure vanished. Eighty-eight thousand six hundred and fifty EXP siphoned away into the infinite vault. Three thousand EXP remained, flooding his body with a controlled surge.

He allocated everything to VIT.

[VIT increasing: 28 -> 30 -> 32 -> 34]

His torn calf muscle knitted shut with a wet squelch. The cracked rib fused back together with a sharp pop that echoed inside his chest. The burst capillaries in his eyes faded. The cracks in his skin sealed, leaving fresh pink tissue that was noticeably denser, tougher, almost metallic to the touch.

He collapsed onto the subway car floor, surrounded by seven rat corpses, and laughed. It came out breathless and bloody, spattering red across his teeth.

[Level: 13 -> 14 -> 15 -> 16 -> 17 -> 18 -> 19]

[STR: 15 -> 18]

[AGI: 14 -> 17]

[VIT: 28 -> 34]

[INT: 9 -> 11]

[Essence: 10 -> 12]

┌──────[ Profile]──────┐

│ [Host]: Alvian Vance

│ [Level]: 19 (Mortal Tier)

│ [Talent]: Clearwater [E-Rank]

│ [Skills]: Clearwater Palm [E-Rank]

│ [STR]: 18 | [AGI]: 17 | [VIT]: 34

│ [INT]: 11 | [Essence]: 12

│ [Karma Points]: 17

│ [EXP Bank]: ~88,650 / ∞

└────────────────┘

Level 19. In seven days. With an E-Rank Talent and a broken trench knife.

The knife was gone. The blade had snapped inside the Guardian’s skull. All he had left was the handle and his bare hands. But seven rat cores sat heavy in his pack, each one worth fifteen to twenty-five credits on the black market. Roughly one hundred and forty credits total.

He grabbed the Guardian by its tail and dragged himself toward the exit. The bioluminescent walls pulsed around him, casting his shadow long and jagged against the old subway tiles.

The Warrens let him go. Whatever lived in the deep tunnels marked with Tobias’s red circle stayed silent. Today was not the day for that.

He emerged into the thirteenth level’s maintenance tunnels and the recycled air hit his face. Somehow, it was the sweetest thing he had ever breathed.

Tobias Finch sat outside his scrap hut. The old scavenger’s mechanical arm rested on his knee, capacitors silent for once. His dark eye tracked Alvian’s emergence from the tunnel entrance, taking in the blood, the missing jacket, the wolf-sized rat corpse dragging behind him.

He said nothing.

His mechanical arm sparked twice. Blue-white flashes that lit up the dim corridor for a fraction of a second each. He didn’t seem to notice.

Alvian walked past him without stopping, the Guardian’s corpse leaving a dark trail on the concrete.

"BZZZT!"

The arm sparked a third time as he passed. Tobias smacked it with his palm and went back to his soldering without a word.

Thanks for the power stones. :)

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