Staring at the system prompt, there wasn't a single spark of joy in Kairon's chest.

  Ding! System Announcement: Congratulations on slaying the projection left in World of Eldrath by [Anzu the Raven God, Pseudo-God Tier Lv. 200] to raise its followers. It has added you to its hit list and will descend at random intervals to hunt you down. Grow stronger quickly, adventurer. Good luck!

  "Congratulations, my ass! A level 200 pseudo-god-tier BOSS is hunting a level 5 newbie like me? How the hell am I supposed to survive this? In my past life, I was hunted nonstop by other players. Barely any time after being reborn in this life, and now I've got a pseudo-god-tier monster on my tail. What the hell did I do to deserve this?" Kairon sighed.

  In the core nexus of World of Eldrath, within the chaotic sea of clouds.

  The noble old man who'd appeared before Kairon was sprawled on a floating cloud couch with his legs propped up, twirling a goblet of red wine between his fingertips. He chuckled under his breath. "Heh, kid, you just had to show off and bite off more than you could chew. Too late to regret it now. All you can do is pray this pseudo-god's rage is only confined to the game world… and not the real one. Interesting. This just keeps getting more and more interesting…"

  Kairon was in the foulest mood imaginable as he made his way to the Nature Mage Camp in Nature's Grove. From a distance, he spotted the Moonfeather Owlbeast, its round belly sticking out as it wiggled its hips back and forth in front of the campfire, spitting that same catchy, off-beat rap.

  Staring at its ridiculous display, Kairon felt a random, absurd urge to march over and kick it flat on its ass.

  "Yo yo… Much obliged, traveler from another world… You brought back my precious tail feathers. May the Earth Mother watch over you! Here's your well-earned reward!"

  Ding! System Announcement: Congratulations on completing the Nature Mage class quest! Summon [Moonfeather Owlbeast] unlocked!

  Kairon immediately opened his skill panel. In the Special Summon tab, his available pact units had expanded to three: [Shadowwood Panther], [Moonfeather Owlbeast], and the basic [Nature Wisp].

  [Shadowwood Panther]: Summon a Shadowwood Panther to fight alongside you. The Panther gains 20% increased attack speed, with its attacks converted to wild physical damage. While the Panther is active, you and your party members within a 100-meter radius gain 5% increased physical critical strike chance. The Panther can only use its exclusive wild skills, is immune to transformation magic, and summoning the Shadowwood Panther removes all movement-impairing effects from your character.

  [Moonfeather Owlbeast]: Summon a Moonfeather Owlbeast to fight alongside you. The Owlbeast gains 36% increased defense, with its attacks converted to astral magical damage. While the Owlbeast is active, you and your party members within a 100-meter radius gain 5% increased spell critical strike chance. The Owlbeast can only use moonlight, sunlight, and astral spells, is immune to transformation magic, and summoning the Moonfeather Owlbeast removes all movement-impairing effects from your character.

  [Nature Wisp]: Basic summon unit. Cannot participate in combat. Summoning it removes all movement-impairing effects from your character.

  Kairon selected the Moonfeather Owlbeast and summoned it, staring at the round, pudgy creature before him. The only words that popped into his head were dorky and bloated.

  A balance energy bar materialized in front of the Owlbeast, its center a swirling pattern of pale blue and soft yellow. A pale blue moon icon sat on the left side of the bar, and a soft yellow sun icon on the right.

  He scanned the Moonfeather Owlbeast's starting skills next, a full five in total. [Moonfire] and [Sunflare], two instant cast damage over time skills, [Sun Strike] and [Moon Strike], two direct damage spells, and a single utility skill, [Wing Glide].

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  [Sun Strike]: Call down a beam of solar energy to bombard targets within a 3x3 meter area, dealing 1% to 150% to 80% astral damage. 2-second cast time. When cast, the balance energy orb shifts toward the lunar energy side of the bar. Damage is minimal when the orb is near lunar energy, moderate when near solar energy, and deals massive critical damage when near the center of the bar.

  [Moon Strike]: Call down lunar energy to bombard a single target, dealing 80% to 200% to 1% astral damage. 1 second cast time. When cast, the balance energy orb shifts toward the solar energy side of the bar. Damage is minimal when the orb is near solar energy, moderate when near lunar energy, and deals massive critical damage when near the center of the bar.

  [Wing Glide]: While its bulky frame can't support sustained flight, it can flap its wings to slow its fall and glide short distances. Cannot change direction mid-glide, and any damage taken will interrupt the effect. Oh, and if you flap in place? It's perfect for looking cute!

  Reading that skill description, Kairon nearly burst out laughing.

  A glide that can't change direction and breaks the second you take damage? Most of this skill's function was just for looking cute. Pair that with the Moonfeather Owlbeast's dorky, bloated look, and the thought of other players staring at him using this later made his skin crawl.

  But the Moonfeather Owlbeast had one massive advantage. Even though it was a ranged caster unit, none of its spells cost any mana. All it required was precise control of the balance energy bar.

  This was an absolute game-changer for his plan to use terrain glitches to level up fast.

  There wasn't a single class in all of World of Eldrath that could match its sustain, not even Rangers. Rangers still had to shell out gold for arrows, but the Moonfeather Owlbeast's skills had zero cost to cast.

  Even though the skill's base damage wasn't particularly high, he was planning to farm high-level mobs with the terrain glitch. No matter how high your skill damage was, against a mob with massive level suppression, you'd only deal a forced 1 damage per hit. Sustain was everything.

  He chanted the incantation under his breath, casting Teleport: Nature's Grove to return to Silvermoon Town.

  After getting his bearings, he summoned the Shadowwood Panther, climbed onto its back, activated [Shadow Stealth], and wove quickly through the town's streets, reaching the Silvermoon Town Bank in minutes.

  He needed to lock the Staff of the Bound Dead in the safety deposit box. This was the thing he'd risked being hunted by a pseudo-god-tier BOSS to get. He couldn't afford to lose it.

  Besides, there was no market for a weapon like this in the current stage of the game. Most players hadn't even seen a Rare piece of gear yet. Putting this Heroic weapon up for sale now would only drive its value through the floor.

  Right now, he was probably the only player alive who knew just how abysmally low the drop rate for Heroic gear was, let alone a weapon with three built-in skills.

  The [Life Siphon] skill would massively boost a Warlock's sustain. A huge number of Warlock skills required the caster to burn their own health to cast, like the iconic AoE skill Hellfire, which traded the caster's own health for massive area damage. Warlocks had plenty of skills just like it, which made [Life Siphon] absolutely broken for the class.

  [Raise Undead] went without saying, but [Scourge Descend] was an absolutely game-breaking skill.

  If you got caught in the center of the skill without fire resistance gear, you'd take the full 3 seconds of stun first. The flames on the ground alone would burn through 15% of your maximum health. By the time the stun wore off, even if you sprinted your hardest to get out of the 50-meter skill range, you'd be lucky to have half your health left.

  A weapon this powerful? He had zero intention of selling it. If it fell into the hands of a hostile player, it would only come back to bite him later.

  After locking the Staff of the Bound Dead in the bank's safety deposit box, he sorted through his inventory and suddenly spotted a treasure chest tucked away in the corner.

  He thought back for a long minute before remembering it must have dropped when he killed that level 5 BOSS. The first kill rewards had been so massive back then, he'd completely forgotten about it.

  He pulled the chest out to examine it closely and found it was a locked Silver Chest. Locked chests almost always held good loot, especially a Silver rarity one.

  Chests, just like gear, had a strict rarity tier system: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Dark Gold.

  Chests were already incredibly rare in World of Eldrath, and Dark Gold Chests could even drop god-tier legacies and artifact-level equipment.

  Kairon thought for a second, then immediately turned and sprinted toward the town's General Store, planning to buy the matching key for the chest. In his past life, he'd been a Rogue for four years and had mastered lockpicking skills, so he'd never had to bother with this. But with his new class, he had no choice but to buy the key like everyone else.