I walked deeper into the Ancient Forest, a shadow wolf of pure darkness pacing at my heel. Behind me, Cassia kept glancing at it, her eyes wide, as if she expected it to eat her camera.
The creature moved without sound. No paw falls. No breathing. Just presence.
My stats had jumped. Twenty-five points from one kill. The math didn't make sense until I remembered that I wasn't supposed to be here. The system had flagged me. The Registry scanner turned red. My Race field displayed corruption instead of Human.
Whatever Plunder did, it operated outside standard Tower mechanics.
I needed to understand it. Not later. Now.
I focused on the word Classless the same way I focused when pulling up my Akashic Record. The text appeared immediately, different from the standard status screen, smaller and positioned just below my line of sight like subtitles.
" CLASS: CLASSLESS "
" System Definition: Error. Framework unassigned. "
" No growth caps. No system debuffs. No passive multipliers. No safety protocols. The body must manage its own evolution. "
No growth caps.
I read it twice to make sure I hadn't misunderstood.
Every climber had limits built into their class. Mages hit walls on physical stats. Warriors plateaued on Ichor capacity. The system prevented you from growing stats that contradicted your framework.
I had no framework to contradict.
The ceiling didn't exist because the system hadn't built one.
Holy shit.
My brain felt like it was rebooting, but I kept my face blank. I focused on the rhythm of my own steps, the feel of the packed earth under my boots—anything to anchor myself while the universe tilted.
Cassia was still streaming. Eight thousand people watching. I couldn't react visibly to information this dangerous.
Next word. Devour.
" ICHOR TYPE: DEVOUR "
" Classification: Vein Affinity Mutation "
" Passive energy drain in proximity. Active erosion of hostile Ichor on contact. Foreign energy integration causes physical degradation. Detection signature registers as void rather than power output. "
The description was clinical but the implications were not. Things near me would drain faster. Attacks would degrade before impact. I'd hurt myself every time I used it actively.
And people with combat senses would feel wrong when they looked at me.
Great. Fantastic. I was a walking nightmare that poisoned the air around me.
Third word. Plunder.
" SKILL: PLUNDER "
" Extract foundation from defeated creatures. Stat acquisition scales inversely with user strength. Skill theft probability based on Ichor stat and compatibility. Activation atomizes corpse and destroys Core. "
There it was. The trade.
Power or money. Every kill I had to choose.
Beast Cores sold for forty to one hundred twenty Ash. I owed two thousand to the Armorer. Normal climbers harvested Cores and paid their debts and bought better gear.
I could skip all of that by turning corpses into stats.
But I'd be broke forever.
Unless I got creative about which creatures I Plundered and which I harvested normally.
Last word. Shadow Sovereign.
" TALENT: SHADOW SOVEREIGN "
" Manifestation of conceptual remnants through Devour Ichor. Sustained Ichor and Endurance drain per active shadow. Physical trauma causes structural collapse. Reconstitution requires manual Ichor investment and extended recovery. Shadows retain behavioral tendencies from original form. "
I looked at the wolf following me.
Conceptual remnant. The system had a fancy name for what I'd done.
The creature wasn't alive. It was the idea of the wolf wearing darkness like a coat. And keeping it manifested was costing me Ichor and Endurance every second it existed.
I checked my status. Both stats were dropping slowly but visibly. Maybe one point every two minutes at current levels.
That would get bad fast if I summoned more than one.
"You're doing that thing again." Cassia's voice cut through my thoughts. "The staring into space thing. Chat thinks you're having a stroke."
"Just thinking."
"About the nightmare creature following you like a puppy?"
"Among other things."
She adjusted her camera angle, getting a better shot of the shadow wolf. Her viewers were probably losing their minds. A Level One climber with F-rank stats summoning creatures from corpses on their first run.
That was content gold.
That was also extremely dangerous information to have publicly documented.
I stopped walking.
Cassia nearly ran into me. "What?"
"Turn off the stream."
Her face did something complicated. "What?"
"Turn it off. Delete the VOD."
"Nox." She said my name very carefully. "Do you understand how many people are watching right now? This is the best content I've had in six months. Chat is going absolutely insane."
"I know."
"Then you know I'm not just going to turn it off because you got mysterious."
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Let the humor drop from my face completely.
She saw it. Her hand moved toward the Eye device without her telling it to.
"How bad?" she asked quietly.
"Bad."
"Like trouble bad or like actual danger bad?"
"Yes."
She stared at me for three full seconds. Then she reached up and tapped the device twice. The small red light went dark.
"Chat's going to kill me," she muttered. "I'm going to drop five hundred followers over this."
"You'll get them back."
"You better be worth it." She pulled the device off and started doing something with the interface. "Deleting the VOD now. This wipes the last forty minutes. Everything after we entered the forest."
"Good."
"It's not good. It's terrible. But I'm doing it anyway because you have that look."
"What look?"
"The one that says if I don't delete this something worse happens." She tapped the screen three more times. "Done. VOD's gone. Stream's offline. Nobody has footage of your shadow puppy except me and I'm guessing you're about to ask me to delete that too."
"Can you?"
"Technically yes. Do I want to?" She looked at the wolf. "Give me three reasons."
"One. That thing isn't normal."
"Obviously."
"Two. The system couldn't classify it."
"How do you know that?"
"Because when I registered it, the notification didn't match any standard Tower mechanics. No Core dropped. It atomized the corpse."
Her expression shifted. "That's not possible."
"Watch."
I focused on the shadow wolf and thought very clearly: DISMISS.
The creature dissolved.
Cassia's face went through several emotions at once. "Okay. That's. That's not a normal summon ability."
"No."
"Because normal summons leave residue or cost Ichor to dismiss or have cooldowns."
"Probably."
"And yours just vanishes."
"Apparently."
She looked at where the wolf had been standing. Then at me. "You're not a Rogue."
"No."
"What are you?"
I hesitated. The truth was worse than she thought. Classless. Devour. Abilities that atomized corpses and turned them into stat injections. A Race field the system couldn't render.
But I needed her to stop asking questions without telling her enough to figure out the real answer.
"Shadow beast tamer?" I tried.
She studied my face. I kept my expression neutral.
"Alright," she said finally. "Shadow beast tamer. Fine. I'll put that in my notes. But you owe me."
"How much?"
"Haven't decided yet. Probably a lot." She put the Eye device back on but left it powered off. "So what now? We're forty minutes into a run. I've got no footage. You've got a secret nightmare ability. The day's going great."
"We keep hunting."
"With you summoning corpse puppies every time we find something?"
"Maybe."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I've got right now."
She made a noise that was half laugh, half exasperation. "You're going to be so much trouble."
"Probably."
"Definitely." She started walking again, pushing through the undergrowth with practiced ease. "Next wolf we find, I want to see you do it again. Just so I know I didn't hallucinate that entire situation."
"Deal."
"And you're explaining how it works eventually."
"Eventually."
She glanced back at me and smiled. "You're lucky you're cute. If you were ugly I'd have left you at the platform."
"Good thing I'm not then."
"Good thing."
We walked for another five minutes in silence. The forest pressed close on both sides. Roots made the ground treacherous. Somewhere overhead, birds called to each other in voices that didn't sound quite right.
My stats had stabilized after summoning the wolf. STR at F-8. AGI at F-11. END at F-6. Still pathetic compared to anyone who'd been grinding for more than a week. But twenty-five points ahead of where I'd started three hours ago.
If I could maintain this rate.
If I could find enough creatures to Plunder without going broke.
If the shadow beasts didn't drain me faster than I could sustain them.
A lot of ifs. But they were good ifs. The kind that meant forward momentum instead of stagnation.
"Movement," Cassia said quietly.
I stopped. Listened.
Rustling. Thirty meters ahead. Something large pushing through brush without bothering to stay quiet.
"Wolf?" I asked.
"Maybe. Could be something else. Floor One has variety." She pulled a knife from somewhere on her belt. Thin blade. Weighted for throwing. "Stay behind me until we know what it is."
"I killed the last one."
"You survived the last one. Different thing." She moved forward slowly, keeping low, using the roots for cover.
I followed. Drew my blade. The weight felt familiar now after the first fight.
The rustling got louder. Closer.
Whatever it was, it was coming directly toward us.
Cassia raised one hand. Stop. Wait.
The creature emerged from between two massive tree trunks twenty meters away.
Not a wolf.
Bigger. Thicker. Built like something that solved problems by walking through them rather than around them.
"Thornhide Boar," Cassia whispered. "Beast Two. This is bad."
The boar turned its head toward us. Small eyes. Massive shoulders. Tusks that curved up like natural weapons designed specifically for gutting things.
It snorted once.
Then it charged.
===
A/N:
Welcome to the end of the chapter, Chat. You want to see Nox rob the Tower blind and build his shadow army?
Then feed the algorithm.
Add this to your library, drop those Power Stones and Golden Tickets like Beast Cores, and flood the comments.
Every comment tells me to keep pushing the pace, and every Stone keeps the chapters flowing.
Don't be a lurker, let me know you're climbing with us!