'Well, isn't this overpowered?'
Naturally, Raven wasn't complaining, but he wasn't so naïve that he couldn't recognise the vast difference between himself and the other player.
'Now is the time to check my rewards.'
'Let's first equip the A-rank armour... What does it mean by invisible?'
Raven was surprised when nothing seemed to happen as he equipped the armour. However, upon closer inspection, he noticed a thin, almost translucent outline shaped like the armour worn by knights from the Middle Ages.
His hands passed right through the outline, as if it weren't even there, which made him quite sceptical about its defensive capabilities.
To test it, he decided to pull out his sword and lightly stabbed himself, confident his Divinity could heal him even if he got hurt. But to his astonishment, the sword didn't even budge, no matter how much force he put behind it.
'That's amazing. It's like it's not even there, meaning I could wear this for protection without it affecting me in my daily life.'
'Now I wonder what I'll get out of this random skill ticket.'
Naturally, Raven was expecting something great; it was an S-rank ticket after all. He decided to click on it, which should activate it.
The ticket ignited in flames as a notification popped up on the system panel.
[You have received the spatial manipulation passive skill]
*Spatial Manipulation (S-Rank)
Level: 1
-->Use of the player's attributes can affect space.
Raven stared at the words floating in front of him and felt a chill race down his spine. It was not just some skill to swing harder or move faster.
This was something entirely different.
The power to distort space itself.
Then the air around him warped for an instant, making his skin prickle
...
He clenched his fists as a thought surfaced.
If he had possessed this back then, if he had been able to bend the world around him even slightly, things would have ended very differently.
His breathing slowed, and for the first time since entering this hell, he felt something close to fear.
Not of dying, but of what he might become if he learned to master this.
He wasn't entirely sure of exactly what it could do, but he knew it was strong; he would find out eventually, so this didn't bother him too much.
Now, the last thing he needed to do was to purchase the sprint skill, which he did quickly since it wasn't something that was essential for him, though potentially still useful.
Gold: 42500 —> 37500
Feeling lucky, Raven decided to buy 5 random draws, which also conveniently brought his gold to a nice, rounded number.
Gold: 37500 —> 35000
[You have received an F-rank knife from a random draw]
[You have received a C-rank golden apple from a random draw]
[You have received an E-rank mana potion from a random draw]
[You have received a F-rank wooden shield from a random draw]
[You have received an A-rank divine Orb from a random draw]
'I guess this is what it feels like to gamble'
'At least a couple of these items are good.'
Though several of the items were useless junk that Raven had no need for, the golden apple and the divine orb caught his interest.
*Golden apple (C-rank)
-->Sheds the impurities of the body and improves strength as well as body composition.
*Divine Orb (A-Rank)
-->If used on a player, they emit divinity and gain the holiness stat. If the player already possesses the holiness stat, they gain holy judgment instead.
These items could prove extremely useful.
Raven had never been considered attractive, and after years of torture and a poor diet, his body was in rough condition, even after awakening his powers.
"My divinity skill managed to heal all my external wounds, but the internal damage, as well as the deterioration caused by drugs and an unhealthy lifestyle, couldn't be fixed."
He suspected that his divinity was simply too low-level to address those deeper issues, and without the Golden Apple, he would've had no other way to heal completely.
He decided to hold off on using these items as he didn't want any of the players around to see him use such rare items as not to attract too much attention to himself.
[All players will be sent back to Earth in one minute]
The announcement snapped Raven out of his thoughts, and so he chose to close his eyes and wait till he was back at the abandoned building to reflect on everything that had happened.
The return process wasn't much different from how they had arrived, but the players leaving were no longer the ordinary humans that had first arrived here.
The light appeared and vanished, and in the blink of an eye, everyone was back.
To the surprise of many, it had only been 30 minutes since they had left, despite spending almost 2 and a half hours in the other dimension.
"Finally back."
Raven sighed as he sat on the cold, hard concrete floor. He was tired, but strangely enough, not all that hungry.
'I guess using most of my Aether will make me tired.'
'I haven't eaten for the whole day, so why am I not hungry?'
He found this quite odd, but with nothing to go on, he eventually dismissed it.
'Well.. though I'm not hungry, I should at least eat the apple I got from the random draw.'
It was exactly as described, a golden apple. As Raven took his first bite, the juices inside poured into his mouth, coating it in the most magnificent taste he had ever experienced.
Although he wanted to savour it, he was also half consumed by his greed for it and ended up consuming it at breakneck speed.
In less than a minute, even the core was gone, as just the fact that it was slightly harder than the flesh wasn't going to stop him from finishing it.
"This…"
He didn't know what hit him, but a wave of dizziness suddenly washed over him, and despite his best efforts to stay awake, he quickly lost consciousness.
Raven lay there in peaceful slumber, completely unaware of the transformation taking place within his body.