Infinity

BOOM!

The leopard had compressed air in it's mouth as it thought it would be enough to kill the assailant in front of it once and for all.

Yet, tragically, it had spelt its own doom.

It had already ensured itself victory when a bright red light glowed and in the hand of it's assailant, a ball of flame had emerged.

The leopard instantly felt danger at the sight of the fireball and tried to maneuver, but as it was still afloat in the air, it's movement was heavily restricted.

Without being able to react, the ball of fire was shot into its mouth that was currently full of air.

The result? The leopard's body rapidly tore apart violently from the inside-out.

The recoil destroyed the surrounding area as trees lit on fire and also wounded Zephyr who was in the explosion's range.

CRASH!

The recoil sent him flying a few meters into a tree.

His head in it's entirety was torched heavily, his hair burnt off, his ears charred, his lips black like charcoal, his eyes couldn't even be seen, with his arms also charred, leaving only the lower part of his body intact.

As the carcass, no, what remained of the leopard, dropped on a small sized crater that formed in the ground, numerous rhombus shaped crystals the size of a slug piled up on the ground beside it.

A set of notifications rang out seconds later;

[You have killed an "Expert tier wind Leopard"]

[You have gained the title "Forest Lord"]

[The section for title's have been included in your Status]

[State a player name to announce your achievement]

Purple colored liquid identical to tentacles, came out of Zephyr's burnt arms and began to consume nearby trees, green specks of light could be moving through the liquid tentacles towards Zephyr's body.

"Whew, that was... crazy yet exhilarating at the same time" said Zephyr with a crazy grin on his face.

If anyone had stumbled upon him in his current state, they would have most likely fled on sight.

After all, he was currently sitting on the ground with his back against a broken tree, with his clothes and shoes completely ruined, from his stomach all the way to his head along with his arms were charred, and his eyes couldn't be seen.

Yet, a set of glimmering white teeth suddenly emerged and began to move.

Seriously, what would you do?

'That feeling of almost dying yet not, that felt awesome, I should try-' while Zephyr began ruminating on crazy ideas, a voice spoke out and cut down that train of thought.

[Don't even think about it, you better thank your stars that you fought the leopard while it was half dead]

[Killing that thing in its prime would have been impossible with your current level of skill]

[Getting cocky is only going to get you killed, do you understand]

"Alright, alright, I understand, there, I said it" Zephyr replied with irritation apparent in his voice.

His arms had fully healed, and as of now as his burnt facial skin began to repair itself, but at the cost of excruciating pain.

SHOUT!

Zephyr shouted as he felt excruciating pain all over his head, the skin on covering his head and neck along with his abdomen began to peel off and fall with new skin taking its place, this process went on for a good seven minutes before the pain

subsided.

About two minutes after the pain began, Zephyr wanted to stop the healing process but was persuaded by Xenon, and was fortunately able to persevere.

"Haaaah…Haaaah... Haaaah" Zephyr continued gasping as the pain receded slowly before his skin fully healed.

"Hmm, this never happened before, what went wrong?" Never asked while observing his new skin.

[The recoil of your attack had burnt your skin to an extreme level, which destroyed your outermost layer of head and stomach skin, but your arms outer skin wasn't too burnt]

His hair slowly grew back, but this time it was as black as night, his eyes turned back to silver, his ears and abdomen skin also restored.

"Hmm, what's this?" Zephyr said as he examined the notifications carefully.

"Ohh, the leopard and I were within the same tier, no wonder it was so tough, and let's see, Title? Forest Lord?"

"Why am I getting bad feelings about this title?"

Sigh

"Okay, Status" Zephyr called out as a prompt appeared in his view.

[Please input a player alias]

"What the? Status"

[Please input a player alias]

"Status" Zephyr reluctantly called again with the answer being the same five times in a row before he finally stopped.

"Hey, Xenon, elaborate"

[Do I look like a Google translator]

"Hehe, sorry, please explain" Zephyr said while rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

[It means you should state a codename for yourself]

"I knew that, but why?"

[I-I don't know, just get it over with]

"Can I change the name in the future?" Zephyr asked as a voice immediately replied;

[Player names are permanent and bound, they cannot be changed]

"O-okay, anything else?" Zephyr

[Hmm, the system can forcefully change extremely obscene names]

"What does that mean?"

[It means a player cannot input his alias as "Your Mom" or others like that]

"Now let's see...Trigon? Nah, Dark knight? Nah, sounds a little cringy, Overlord? Definitely not…"

"Man, why are cool names so hard to find when words are infi- ohh yeah that's it!.

A lightbulb seems to have abruptly switch on this moment as Zephyr made his choice in an instant;

My player name is "Infinity"

[Are you sure] The system asked back because players can only choose once.

"Yes, I am" was all he said as notifications hit him shortly after.

[Congratulations! You player name is now "Infinity" ]

{Planetary Wide Announcement}

[Player "Infinity" is the first to kill an Expert Tier Beast]

{Galaxy Wide Announcement}

[Player "Infinity" from planet Earth is the first to kill an Expert Tier Beast]

[Planetary Leaderboard have been unlocked]

[Galactic Leaderboard has been unlocked]

{System To Player Announcement}

[You have gained the title "Expert Trailblazer"]

"Ahh!"

Zephyr gripped his head as information about the Leaderboards was transferred into his brain.

"I knew those titles were trouble, now everyone knows my name, this is annoying"

"Well, I can't keep crying about spilled milk, I just have to become stronger, that way, no one will dare mess with me" Zephyr said.

It turns out that the Planetary Leaderboards were just power rankings between a planet's ten players while the Galactic Leaderboard was the power rankings between players of the entire Galaxy.

From this, Zephyr inferred the meaning of the consecutive announcements.

It simply meant that the announcements were to players of both his planet and galaxy, and worst of it all, his name, well player name was also broadcasted.

After sorting these thoughts out, he looked to his front and found numerous rhombus shaped crystals on the floor, beside it, the carcass of the leopard.

At this sight, his mouth curled up as he moved forward to inspect the crystals.

As he picked them up and observed some of them before Xenon's voice rang out;

[Those are ability cores, each core represents different attributes, absorbing them will increase your stats]

"Ohh" Zephyr said as his mouth curled up even more before turning on into a grin.

"Let's try it then" Zephyr said as he picked up a handful of the crystals and absorbed it, the crystals turned into specks of light before flowing into Zephyr's body.

"Woah, what is this feeling" Zephyr asked as he felt his fatigue wash off and his body became invigorated with notifications coming right after;

[Strength increases by 1]

[Strength increases by 1]

[Agility increases by 1]

[Agility increases by 1]

[Agility increases by 1]

[Strength increases by 1]

[Strength increases by 1]

[Strength increases by 1]

[Strength increases by 1]

[Agility increases by 1]

[Agility increases by 1]

[You have unlocked the attribute "Dexterity"]

[It is now available in your attribute panel]

Zephyr hadn't paid attention to it as he was currently feeling stinging pain by having muscles forcefully increase in strength before completely receding.

"Let's never do that again, I've been feeling too much pain lately, and, Xenon, why didn't you say anything?!"

[Because I deemed it unnecessary]

"Are you serious?! What if I died?"

[I'm you, I know how much pain you have to feel before you die]

Zephyr: "...."

"Tch, whatever, now where do I put the rest of these crystals?" Zephyr said while looking at the remaining cores.

[Use your inventory]

"My what now?" Zephyr had forgotten about it.

[Your storage space]

"Ohh, yeah that!"

"Let's just pack the crystals neatly first" Zephyr began to gather the crystals in front of him, to ensure that none of the crystals would slip away".

"Hmm, what's this?" Zephyr said as his hand caught onto something different under the crystal pile.