Chapter 101: Legendary Item (Bonus)

Neo’s POV:

Darkness. Everything I could see and feel around me was utter darkness. Not even a single speck of light could be seen around me.

I wasn’t sure where I was. I could feel my body move instinctively, as if I was standing in a ventilated room where all the lights had been turned off, but still my vision couldn’t adjust through this darkness.

I paused as my gaze caught something moving. It wasn’t light, and even the figure of whatever it was remained invisible to me, but I could feel it.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Where am I?!"

I waited for an answer, which didn’t come, and I lost the presence entirely, left with nothing but empty space. I wasn’t sure if the earlier sensation had been an illusion or if someone was simply playing with my mind.

Just as my thoughts began to tangle up in confusion, a hand pressed suddenly on my shoulder, and my instinct kicked in immediately, shaking off the touch and pulling away, staring into the darkness in front of me where no one was visible, though I was certain something stood there.

"Are you f*cking deaf?! What do you want from me?!"

"You are not taking that thing seriously."

I stopped abruptly, hearing a voice that felt both familiar and unfamiliar at once. Familiar, because I had heard it somewhere far in the past, and unfamiliar, because I had no idea who the actual person behind it was.

"What’s ’that’ thing you’re trying to talk about?"

The figure didn’t answer right away. It hovered around me, its presence feeling vast, as though I could feel it everywhere at once, as if its consciousness was large enough to fill the entire darkness.

It felt impossible and possible at the same time, and I had no idea how strong the figure in front of me actually was. It didn’t intimidate me with any show of power. Intimidation still felt like a distant thing, because it didn’t even react to my words at all.

"Hello? Can you hear my voice? Or are you just some kind of recording? Some leftover memory from the scripture?"

I quieted down, waiting for the figure to speak, hoping the long silence between us would finally break.

"You’re messing with fate, Neo. You should understand the consequences of doing that."

"I hope you’ll be more careful on the path ahead."

Before I could understand or ask what kind of nonsense the shadowy figure was even talking about, the darkness began to disintegrate, a single ray of light falling across me, blinding my vision as the darkness collapsed completely around it.

Through the disintegrating dark, my gaze caught a single strand of crimson hair drifting where the figure had just stood. Before I could catch a proper look at its face, I was already being pulled out of the dream entirely.

My consciousness returned to the real world.

The first thing that came into view when my eyes opened was an unfamiliar ceiling, a fan rotating slowly above me, sunlight streaming through a nearby window and casting warm rays across the bed I was lying on. My head throbbed faintly, my memories a messy, tangled knot, and I couldn’t quite work out where I actually was or how I’d ended up there.

I looked around the room, finally recognizing I was in some kind of hospital room, or at least a proper clinic. No one else was inside, as though they’d deliberately left me alone so I wouldn’t be disturbed while sleeping.

I tried sitting up, and somehow felt no pain at all, every wound healed perfectly, leaving nothing behind. I was honestly surprised not to find myself still battered and bloody, the way I’d fully expected to be.

As the memories of the previous night slowly poured back into my mind, I remembered everything, the fight against the dark elf, the final attack where I’d given absolutely everything I had, and then the collapse. After that, nothing. A complete blank.

"Did I win or lose?"

My question fell into the empty room, but of course, there was no one there to answer it, leaving me alone with no idea what had actually happened while I was unconscious.

I looked down at my hand, clenching my palm and loosening it again, feeling my strength fully returned, my body fresh and whole.

Then, my confused mind was pulled toward a familiar voice in my head, the chimes of the system popping up in front of me.

[Ding!]

----

[Due to your deeds in saving the entire village from near annihilation, all of the villagers now feel indebted to you and pray daily for your well-being.]

[The action has generated a massive amount of Karma.]

[Karma Evaluation has been completed.]

[Based on the value of the Karma, three suitable rewards have been generated.]

[Option 1: System Upgrade — Will unlock new features.]

[Option 2: A Large Amount of Gold Coins — Enough for your next seven generations to live in luxury and leisure.]

[Option 3: A Special Item — A legendary-grade item, suited to the user’s current class and level.]

----

Looking at the karma system notifying me of what I’d earned, I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of excitement, my gaze flicking between the three options scattered in front of me as I began analyzing each one carefully.

’So I can actually upgrade my already overpowered system? That means I could unlock all sorts of new features and make even better use of it. Now that’s impressive.’

But I wasn’t about to get blinded by the first shiny option without properly considering the rest. The second option offered enough gold to last seven generations of Dravens yet to come, enough wealth to let an entire bloodline live comfortably without ever lifting a finger. Still, it didn’t hold much appeal to me at all. Money had never meant much to me, and I already had enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life. As for some future generation, I couldn’t bring myself to care that much about people who might not even exist.

In the original story, there had never been any future generation of Dravens to speak of. The entire bloodline had been wiped out completely, and the one responsible for that was the male lead himself.

’So that option’s completely off the table. I should be more worried about keeping my current family safe from whatever danger’s coming than stockpiling wealth for descendants who might never exist.’

My eyes finally settled on the last option, the legendary-grade item. As tempting as that sounded to most people, and as much as it might have blinded someone else into choosing it without a second thought, it didn’t particularly excite me either. As much as a legendary-grade item sounded impressive, I already knew from everything I’d learned through the anime that there were far higher grades of artifacts out there in the world, Mythic-grade, Divine-grade, tiers so far beyond legendary that it barely compared.

And even if I genuinely wanted something legendary, I could simply ask my father or mother, since the Draven family treasury almost certainly held something of that caliber already. As one of the most renowned noble houses in the entire Velkrath Empire, passed down generation after generation, there had to be countless artifacts inherited from our ancestors resting somewhere inside that vault. I’d never actually seen it myself, but I knew, without a doubt, that something like that had to exist there.

After weighing everything carefully and finding only one option genuinely worth my time, I didn’t waste another second, clicking on the first option immediately, curious to see exactly what new features this upgrade would bring.

[Ding!]

[Option 1: System Upgrade — Selected!]

[System is upgrading...]

[Upgrade in progress...]

[0.001%... 0.002%... 0.003%...]

[Time Required: 2 Months]

As the upgrade began, the progress crept forward so slowly that it genuinely felt like it might take years to reach one hundred percent, even with the required time already listed clearly beneath it.

My gaze flicked toward the window, sunlight spilling across me, the glass panel slightly cracked as I caught a clear view of the village outside through it. The settlement still looked broken, torn apart from the night before, and the sight of it alone was enough to remind me exactly what I’d failed to properly protect. Several lives had been lost during the previous night’s events, and more than half the village still bore the scars of that destruction.

A dull ache settled in my chest, my fingers curling loosely into my palm.

[Ding!]

[You have failed to overturn the fate of the village!]

[This failure has caused a disturbance in the fate of the world!]

[Failure Compensation Activated!]

[Calculating the value of the failure...]

[Compensating with a suitable reward...]