The Grey Tusk saw him coming and sped up.

To a monster that size, Winston charging at it probably looked absurd, a small, weak creature sprinting toward something that had already killed it once.

That reaction was exactly what Winston was counting on. Overconfidence made patterns sloppy. And dying once had taught him exactly what this thing’s opening looked like.

They closed the distance fast.

The Grey Tusk’s remaining good arm swung in from the right, the same starting move as before, wide and devastating, aimed to flatten him.

Winston went into a roll the moment the arm committed, dropping under the arc and letting the fist crash into empty ground beside him.

The impact shattered the earth and threw up a wall of dust, but Winston was already coming out of the roll in a low crouch directly beneath the creature.

He sliced off the wrist of its right supporting arm, leaving it to balance on its hind legs and remaining support arm.

The Grey Tusk bellowed and tried to grab him, but Winston’s position made it nearly impossible, as he went underneath the bulk of the monster, staying out of reach of its one functional arm.

The scramble to adjust with one support arm and catch Winston at the same time threw the creature’s balance off, and that was all Winston needed.

He drove forward and took the left leg at the joint, the Level 6 Gladius cutting clean through with the Energy Coating doing the work the blade alone couldn’t.

The Grey Tusk couldn’t maintain its balance any longer and it finally toppled.

Twenty feet of mass hit the ground with an impact that shook the trees. Winston didn’t wait. He sprinted up its body and drove the Gladius straight into its skull with both hands behind the thrust, sinking the blade to the hilt.

The ember-red eyes went dark and the Energy Coating dissolved off the blade at that exact moment as the thirty seconds were up.

[0.15 Mastery Gained]

[1 Soul Gained]

[You have received a Spell]

Winston stood on top of the Grey Tusk’s motionless head, chest heaving, and stared at the notifications.

❖❖❖❖

Winston pulled the gladius free and stepped off the Grey Tusk’s head.

He still couldn’t fully process it. A Level 15 monster. Taken down with a natural Mastery barely above five points, the equivalent of a Level One monster by any standard measure.

On paper, that fight shouldn’t have been possible. In practice, it had come down to two things working together in a way the Grey Tusk had no answer for.

The first was the Energy Coating trick.

A normal Level 10 spell would have cost far more energy than Winston could have used freely the way he did.

But Energy Coating was a Level 5 spell that Soul Burn had pushed to Level 10, which meant it carried the power output of a Level 10 spell at the energy cost of a Level 5.

That gap was everything. It gave him access to force that should have been completely limited in reach, and layered on top of the Level 6 Gladius, it had been just enough to push his strikes above the Grey Tusk’s threshold.

The second was dying first.

’It would have been better if I hadn’t lost a soul, though.’

That first strike had come before Winston had fully mapped the creature’s pattern. Even with an energy-coated blade, the Grey Tusk’s raw power had been enough to kill him outright.

Anyone else in that position, anyone without Life Tithe running quietly in the background, would have ended their First Entry right there in the dirt.

Winston had gotten back up instead, and the death itself had shown him exactly what he needed to know. He exhaled slowly and let the tension drain from his shoulders.

Then he pulled up the spell reward.

[Grey Charge — Level 15]

[Type: Expendable]

[Cost: 150 Energy]

[Effect: The user’s body becomes encased in a dull metallic sheen as they accelerate instantly toward a target within a 30-meter range. The movement is so rapid it leaves a blurred after-image of grey mist. Upon impact, the stored kinetic energy discharges into a single devastating strike dealing 17% Physical Damage with a high chance to Stagger the opponent.]

Winston read through it twice. The spell was clearly built from the same force behind the Grey Tusk’s charge, the attack that had killed him before he’d even understood what hit him.

He had no doubts about its power. A Level 15 spell with that kind of damage output and a Stagger effect was exactly the kind of tool that could change a fight instantly.

Then he saw the energy cost.

One hundred and fifty while his current energy was sitting at a hundred.

’Fifty short.’

His mood dipped. He had risked his life, died once, burned through his best resources and pulled a spell he couldn’t even cast yet.

The next natural energy increase wouldn’t come until he hit ten Mastery points. That felt far away for something he wanted to use right now.

Then the idea hit him.

Winston checked his Soul Garden. Six souls total, five Kobolds from earlier, plus the Grey Tusk making six.

It should have been seven, but Life Tithe had consumed one soul when it triggered, and one lotus had entered a full day cooldown, leaving four lotus slots active but that was enough.

He didn’t hesitate.

『IGNITE』

Three souls burned at once, all directed into his Realization. The heat in his chest flared hard and fast, and his panel updated immediately.

[Mastery: 10.0625] [75%]

The moment his Mastery crossed ten, the energy increase triggered automatically.

[Energy: 200]

His energy pool had doubled. Winston felt it and although it was temporary it was real for this moment.

But the instant he cut Soul Burn it would revert, but right now he had two hundred energy and one soul lotus remaining. More than enough to test what he actually wanted to know.

’One soul lotus left. Let’s see if the doubling holds at Level 15.’

He loaded the final usable soul into Grey Charge and watched the panel shift.

❖❖❖❖

Freya hadn’t moved from the tree.

She had told herself she was staying back to observe.

But the honest truth was that what she had just watched didn’t fit into any framework she had for how a first entry was supposed to go, and she needed a moment to process it.

’Three strikes. He finished a Level 15 monster in three strikes.’

She had faced that exact creature herself. Her class was Sacred, she had trained her entire life, had access to resources most holders could never dream of, and against the Grey Tusk she had done the only sensible thing available to her.

She had run.

Getting away from a Level 15 monster with a freshly awakened class and low Mastery was genuinely impressive.

Freya knew that. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of, afterall veteran Rank One initiates with high Mastery struggled against creatures at that level.

Fresh initiates weren’t supposed to be able to do anything except pray they survived.

Yet the boy standing on the Grey Tusk’s body had just killed it.

’Where did he come from?’

Freya knew the top ten students from every major academy in Key City. She had made a point of learning about them, their families and their projected awakening grades.

The grade of a class wasn’t random. It correlated directly with the potency of a person’s Trait Factor, and that potency showed itself before awakening through raw talent.

How fast someone learned. How quickly their body adapted and grew. The most potent Trait Factors produced the most gifted students, which was why the top students almost always awakened the highest grades.

This boy didn’t match anyone on that list. She was certain of it.

Freya’s eyes stayed fixed on him as he shifted his stance. Something about the way he positioned himself made her focus sharpen.

’What is he planning now?’

She leaned forward instinctively.

Then it happened.

Freya’s eyes went wide.