The adrenaline of the slaughter left a cold, hollow sensation in Cassian's chest.
He walked back through the village gates, his boots leaving faint green smears on the limestone pavement.
The plaza was a scene of raw chaos. Weary veterans dragged goblin corpses into central piles for burning, while groups of survivors huddled near the stone walls, staring blankly at the sky.
He found a quiet corner near the well, sat down on the stone lip, and pulled out his wooden training sword to inspect it.
He wiped the blade with a piece of discarded cloth. The wood remained pristine, holding its edge perfectly without a single notch or crack despite the hour of intense combat.
Across the square, Alex stood with his arms crossed over a blood-stained leather chestpiece, barking orders to the remaining militia.
The local veteran turned his head and caught Cassian's eye, watching him with a piercing intensity.
Bypassing any need for a verbal report, Alex offered a single, sharp nod. He recognized the steady, unhurried change in the boy's posture.
Most looked at Cassian and saw a lucky recruit who had survived the perimeter, but Alex saw a predator returning from a successful harvest.
Cassian stood up, his stamina beginning to crawl back toward its limit as the high Vitality stat did its work.
He navigated the market area, seeking a way to liquidate his spoils before the camp locked down for the night.
Most stalls were abandoned, but near the edge of the residential huts, an old woman sat on a low stool. She kept her eyes fixed on a massive, pungent copper cauldron that boiled over a bed of hot coals, filling the air with the scent of sulfur and dried mountain roots.
"I have loot to sell," Cassian said, stopping a few paces back from the heat. "Where can I find a merchant who takes goblin drops?"
The woman continued stirring her pot with a long iron rod, her movements rhythmic. "Depends on the item. What kind?"
Cassian reached into his inventory. With a flick of his will, a heavy pile of severed goblin ears materialized directly onto the wooden table beside her workspace.
"Goblin ears. Eighteen of them," Cassian stated.
The woman stopped her stirring.
She peered at the pile, using a small wooden skewer to count through the green, leathery skin. "Fresh. A mix of warriors, scouts, and a few vanguards. The local circle needs these for basic sensory concoctions and stamina drafts. I can offer five Generic Essences each. Take it or leave it."
"I'll take it."
The woman reached into the air and produced ninety small, glowing shards of grey glass, setting them on the table.
Cassian swept the shards into his inventory. The system interface chimed quietly in his mind, registering the weightless currency into his balance.
He moved immediately toward the village forge, guided by the heavy, rhythmic striking of a hammer against an anvil.
The heat from the coals hit his face before he even crossed the threshold. A burly man with soot-stained skin and thick forearms looked up as Cassian approached the wooden counter.
"I need iron," Cassian said, placing his hand flat on the wood. "A shortsword."
The smith grunted, wiping sweat from his brow with a greasy rag before pointing to a weapon rack behind him. "Standard iron. Better than wood, lighter than stone. It was used quite a bit by the guards and I repaired it as I could. Twenty-five Essences."
Cassian transferred the required shards from his inventory.
He took the iron blade, testing its weight. It felt cold, stiff, and noticeably front-heavy compared to his old weapon.
He retreated to a dark, private corner of the smithy, placing his old wooden sword on a dusty workbench next to the new steel.
He placed his left palm over the wooden hilt. 'Extract.'
His Modifier [S] talent hummed to life. A faint, pale light seeped from his palm, targeting the conceptual framework of the weapon. He pulled the [Regenerating (F)], [Sharpness (F)], and [Hardness (F)] traits completely out of the grain.
The wooden sword immediately lost its vibrant, polished hue, turning a dull, sickly grey. He flexed his fingers, and the brittle wood snapped like a dry twig under the slight pressure.
He then pressed his right hand against the cold iron blade.
One by one, he guided the extracted concepts into the metal, forcing them into the three vacant slots.
The iron vibrated violently, a low frequency hum echoing through the hilt as the blue glow of the system's power sank deep into the steel.
[Modifiers Imbued: Regenerating (F), Sharpness (F), Hardness (F)]
The steel transformed instantly. The unbalanced weight redistribution corrected itself, the edge sharpened to a microscopic point, and the metal took on a dark, oiled sheen that resisted the ambient soot of the forge.
The weapon now answered perfectly to his touch.
As he stepped out into the cooling evening air, he caught the low sound of Alex's voice drifting from the guard barracks. The veteran was speaking to a small group of weary, wounded scouts.
"This batch of Cycle Travellers is cursed," Alex said, his voice grim and heavy with fatigue. "To have a Rare Tier Boss spawn this early in the cycle is a death sentence for most of these rookies. The coordination we saw in the woods is completely unnatural for common rabble. Something intelligent is leading them, and it is pooling its strength for tomorrow."
Cassian gripped the hilt of his new sword, his knuckles whitening. He looked toward the dark treeline. His 38 Agility enhanced his vision, allowing him to track the slight, unnatural twitching of the leaves even in the fading twilight.
[Time until Evaluation: 19:43:57]
[Status Panel]
Name: Cassian Nil
Level: 7 (0/1280)
Talents: Modifier [S]
Class: None
Health: 210/210 Stamina: 210/210
[Attributes]
Strength: 16
Agility: 38
Vitality: 21
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 13
Available Points: 0
Cassian closed the status screen with a flicker of his thoughts.
The numbers were massive compared to his first day, but Alex's warning weighed heavily on his calculations.
'I don't feel ready for whatever this evaluation is. I need to get stronger.'
Sitting inside the limestone walls for the next twenty hours felt like a slow execution.
The common scouts were dead, but the entity directing them remained active.
If a Rare Tier Boss intended to wipe out the village before the evaluation, waiting for the assault to reach the plaza meant fighting on the monster's terms. He needed to thin the field or find a vulnerability before the timer reached zero.
Under the cover of the gathering dusk, Cassian bypassed the main gates, instead slipping over a low section of the northern palisade where the guards were distracted by a supply wagon.
He blended into the tall grass, his high Agility making his departure entirely silent.
He stepped into the forest. The immediate border was eerie and still, devoid of the usual high-pitched chattering of his fellow humans.
He pushed past the first thicket, moving deeper into the interior.
The brush remained entirely empty of life, but the environment itself began to give way to strange, localized anomalies.
The air grew heavy and unnaturally humid, sticking to his skin.
The crisp pine needles beneath his boots dissolved into slick, waterlogged soil that squelched with every step.
Cassian knelt, his fingers brushing against a patch of moss growing on a rotting log. It was dripping wet, squeezing out clear liquid under minimal pressure, yet the region had experienced nothing but dry heat for the past week.
He stood up and looked ahead, filtering the shadows.
A trail of distinct, unusually thin footprints pressed deep into the mud, leading toward the northern ridges.
The tracks were narrow and lacked the heavy, splayed toe imprints characteristic of the combat-oriented vanguards.
These prints belonged to a creature with a much lighter, frailer frame.
Surrounding the footprints, the local vegetation showed signs of bizarre corruption.
The ferns and wild brush had withered, turning a pale, translucent white where they had been touched by an unnatural, stagnant moisture.
Faint shimmers of residual magical energy clung to the damp bark of the surrounding oaks, smelling faintly of river silt and old rot.
Cassian's analytical mind cataloged the data. A fragile commander capable of forcing a forest ecosystem to flood suggested a ranged fighter, likely utilizing a bow or some kind of magic.
In a dense forest, an enemy that could manipulate the playing field from afar was very dangerous, even more considering the current condition of the forest, with a moist ground it would be hard to not slip while dodging.
He cleared his mind, keeping his breathing shallow as he followed the wet trail. He didn't want to alert any wandering sentries, but these physical traces formed a direct, undeniable line toward the commander's staging ground.
He moved forward, his hand resting firmly on the cold hilt of his iron sword, tracking the scent of damp decay into the deep woods.