Calum followed the beggar into the slum.

  The place was a wasteland.

  Broken buildings leaned at unnatural angles, propped up by rotting wooden beams. Trash piled in corners—refuse, excrement, the bones of small animals. The air reeked of decay and unwashed bodies.

  Eventually both arrived at an open field where tents stood in no order. Old cloth was stitched together with ropes, People lived inside, doing whatever they could just to get through each day.

  And the moment both entered—The young beggar suddenly sprinted ahead, shouting at the top of his lungs.

  "COME OUT! COME OUT! THIS ONE KILLED DODO AND THE OTHERS! HE HAS MONEY!"

  The word money spread like wildfire.

  Immediately, people emerged from their tents.

  Dozens of them.They surrounded Calum on all sides, forming a rough circle.

  Earlier, after pleading and begging for his life, the young beggar now had a sinister smile on his face, eager to watch Calum be torn apart.

  Right then, from the crowd, a large, fat man pushed his way forward. His face was hideous—scarred, greasy, eyes sunken deep. He stared at Calum while licking his dark lips.

  The other beggars moved aside instinctively when they saw him approach.

  He halted a few steps in front of Calum. “Hehehe… So you have money,?”

  Slowly the other beggars closed in.

  Thinking Calum was dead, the young beggar turned away. However, just as he did, he heard a lot of gasps coming from behind him and immediately spun around.

  Finding that the big fat man was still standing.

  But the horrifying thing was—his whole head was missing!

  THUD.

  The body collapsed to the ground, blood gushing from the severed neck and Calum held the missing head in his left hand, expression completely neutral."What a mess.”He then tossed the head aside like garbage.

  Everyone froze when they saw this, but immediately they all shouted and attacked at once.

  “Yaaah! Go to hell! Kill him—”They rushed at Calum like hungry wolves.

  And Calum moved forward instead of running away. Even though he was all alone, there was not even a trace of fear on his face or any kind of enjoyment, for him killing felt like drinking normal water.

  He moved instantly towards a man who was shouting non stop, and stabbed him in the stomach. “Aaakh” the man screamed in pain and fell on the ground, crumpled, clutching the wound, eyes wide with shock.

  Calum pulled the blade free.

  Moved to the next target. Behind Calum, another man screamed and swung a rusted knife wildly.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Calum dodged the strike and the next moment arms of that man fell on the ground, fingers still twitching. The man dropped to his knees, howling like an injured wolf before the sword passed through his neck, ending the dog's cry.

  Calum continued the spree. Blood splashed onto the ground, slowly soaking into the dry earth.

  Panic spread. They started attacking in groups now, with their trembling hands, the attacks were shallow and easy for Calum to dodge, giving enough time for him to attack back like a reaper in a field.

  Each step he took a body fell on the ground, life less and slowly Corpses piled around him.

  Some beggars tried to flee after realizing all their strongest fighters were dead

  However, Calum followed them and screams filled the open ground, then stopped one by one. Many begged him to stop this craziness.

  But they didn't understand.

  He wasn't killing them because they attacked him.

  He wasn't killing them out of anger or revenge.

  To Calum, they were nothing more than EXPERIENCE POINTS.

  And when the last beggar's dead body fell on the ground, the area went into complete silence.

  In the center of the field, Calum sat down on the back of a dead man and the sword in his hand disappeared. His clothes were stained with blood. There were some cuts on his body that he got during the fight. But he ignored them for now and opened the system window.

  ..

  While he had been killing these beggar's, the system had been continuously collecting their souls.

  _______

  [NAME: CALUM WARDEN]

  [AGE: 11]

  [LEVEL: 5]

  [MAGE CIRCLE: FIRST CIRCLE (MID-STAGE)]

  [SOUL CHARACTERISTIC: HIDDEN FROM SEER]

  [THE PLAYER IS NOT BOUND BY THE LIMITED RESTRICTION.]

  ________

  He had jumped straight from level one to level five by just killing sixty beggars.

  A satisfying smile appeared on his face as a new messages kept popping up on the system window.

  ____

  [NEW NOTIFICATIONS]

  [SKILL SECTION UNLOCKED]

  ____

  He opened the skill section immediately, many skills appeared before his eyes. Divided into two sections.

  COMMON SECTION:

  Dash

  Stealth

  Berserk

  Heal

  ...

  These required low levels to unlock. Basic utility skills.

  ______

  CELESTIAL SECTION:

  Teleport

  Time Freeze

  Regeneration

  ...

  These required extremely high levels. Skills he'd once wielded in his past life. But some were missing. And in their place—new ones were present.

  While looking through all the skills, Calum paused for a moment when his eyes landed on a certain skill.

  Memories surfaced.

  In his past life, the system which was given to all players had only one type of fixed character path. Some were warriors with great strength, some could transform into different species.

  And in his case, it had once been the Weapon Warrior type—allowing him to use any kind of weapon with ease.

  However, there was a time he fought a particular player. One who possessed a Summoner-type character. That war had lasted for two hundred years. And in the end—Calum had killed him but the fear of that player creeped him for many nights.

  Because whenever he destroyed his summons they again stood up as all of them were already dead. Later, he studied the skills that the player used and when he gave the system design to the developer he had actually begged the developer to put this skill into his system.

  And with that thought, his gaze lingered on this unfamiliar skill.

  NECROMANCER.

  He pressed on the skill.

  A message appeared:

  [SKILL LOCKED]

  [REQUIREMENTS:]

  [- REACH LEVEL 20]

  [- POSSESS DARKNESS ELEMENT MARKS]

  Seeing this message, Calum was not dejected at all, instead, he felt excited. It meant that one day, he really would be able to use the necromancer skills.

  As for the Darkness Element—

  He already knew what that meant.

  In this magic world, every human was born with different Element marks. When they became mages, they could only use the magic based on those marks.

  For example, Professor Gilbert could create fireballs, but he could never create a water ball or use magic of another element. That was because his body carried fire element marks.

  And Calum—

  Calum had darkness element marks in his body and this was also one of the reasons this body was chosen for him.

  Along with traces of fire and nature elements. That meant in the future, he could use magic related to darkness, fire, and nature.

  He'd confirmed this information from books in the library and cross-referenced it with the system.

  (Perfect)

  Calum then pressed another skill that had been already unlocked after reaching level five.

  Dash..

  The skill was simple. Using it, he could instantly increase his speed for a split second. And as Calum’s level increased, the skill level would rise along with it.

  After checking everything, what was unlocked and what not, Calum closed the system window. He turned around and walked away from this place, leaving the corpses of the beggars behind, abandoning them to rot.

  In the evening,

  Calum waited near a buggy for John and the others. Soon, they arrived, happily moving like sheep behind Edrin, who walked ahead, talking with Mimi and the other girls.

  John, however, was nowhere near to be seen with Mimi today.

  When they arrived at the spot, Calum hid first and quietly slipped into the group, as if he had been with them all along.

  He began searching for John and soon found him at the very back with his face dull and sad.

  Seeing this Calum understood one thing clearly. Tonight, he was going to hear another story from this lover.

  After that, they all returned to the academy in their buggies.

  At the gate, Professor Gazeff was already there, worry flashed on his face. But When he saw Calum, he let out a sigh of relief.

  Night fell as everyone returned to their rooms.

  Lying on his bed, Calum was reading a green-covered book.

  Then after a while, he glanced at John, who had been silent the entire time, staring blankly ahead like a brainless corpse.

  Breaking the silence, Calum called out.

  “John… John…”

  No response.

  “ Haah, Did something happen between you and Mimi?”Just hearing Mimi’s name, tears immediately fell from John’s eyes as he started crying.