I logged in.
I was back in Green Hell.
Again. Just leaves and trees around me—nothing else.
The sun was setting, and the forest was strangely quiet. I remembered that last time, you could hear all kinds of animals.
I didn't know what to do.
Then it hit me—I could take advantage of all this time to learn more about the VerbTank skill.
I opened my system profile window.
Then I opened the skill window:
[Name: VerbTank][Description: This skill is an echo of a past life of the {Player}, it prevents death by answering it with a force great enough to defeat even God]
[Passive Effects: Skill Absorption Lv.5, Attribute Absorption Lv.6, Death Prevention Lv.1]
[Active Effects: "N*ger" Lv.1: Destroys everything the {Player} perceives as a threat to their life. Activation requirement: {Player} must have less than 5 HP.]
[The Skill [VerbTank] currently possesses 5 attributes. Do you want to transfer them to the player? Yes/No]
I couldn't believe what I was reading—this thing was OP. Damn, in just a few months here I could become insanely strong, maybe even the best player ever. But of course, there was a problem—that word. Even if I became the best player of all time, I couldn't just go shouting racial slurs at official competitions. There had to be a way to change the activation word, right? God, I hoped so.
I invested all my attribute points into Intelligence.
I learned two new formulas—one for each class.
"Thunder Blade", which made electric sparks burst from my sword,and "Thorns", which allowed me to recover HP equal to the damage absorbed by my shield.
In WordCasting, the assignment of formulas every few levels was random. The strength of a formula depended on the player's skill and mastery level, but I still felt lucky—both seemed solid even at mastery level one.
Night had fallen. I set out to look for hostile enemies—not exactly a tough task in that place—and sure enough, I quickly ran into a dinosaur-type monster. It was huge and even higher-leveled than Zack.
It one-shotted me. The VerbTank skill didn't even have time to activate. In less than a second, I respawned in that weird plaza in the middle of the forest.
"Prevents death, my ass," I thought.
Apparently, getting stronger in that place was going to be harder than I expected.
I logged out and decided to try again the next day—this time in the daylight.