Looting and levelling, the bread and butter of any adventurer that walks the System Worlds. These are the basics of why someone built these worlds, and even the natives, who someone originally intended to be non-player characters, can partake of this fruit.

  It is all thanks to the benevolence of the great and powerful Gaming Gods! Through their power and might, they made an entire universe there play ground. Every native owes their existence to their collective will.

  At least that's what the orientation harps on about. Actually, the gaming gods don't really game anymore. The System Worlds grew too large and diverse, requiring stern management. People considered the gods performing a playthrough a major event with all hands on deck. But after a while, most of the gods lost interest.

  Instead, they dedicated new departments to managing the worlds for the natives, and of course the Gaming Gods established faux pantheons across the System Worlds to fill the niche of religion.

  This is all pretty standard stuff, but it puts into focus how this all came about. And for me, simply a System Clerk on the outside looking in. Being on the ground floor, in the thick of it, was most exhilarating. That being said, it was time to dive in.

  "Marius, can you loot the Lich? He probably has some stuff suited for you." I suggested since he helped a lot with all these undead.

  He nodded and made his way to the throne, and the battered skeleton slumped on the ground. Instead, I made my way to the Death Knight and riffled through his things with little respect for the giant. After about thirty seconds of looting, I felt kind of bad and said a few words.

  "Sorry, dude, you seemed like an honourable and stoic warrior. While your master was an enormous dick, I will try not to place his crimes on you."

  Performing a small ceremony and a half-remembered prayer to Hades, I hoped his soul could find peace. Or he could hook up with Odin in Valhalla; I'm sure he would love that. I was not sure if Odin and his valkyries were part of the current afterlife system, but I wouldn't put it past the home office.

  Shrugging the thought aside, especially the fate of my soul, assuming I had one. I turned back to good old looting. Gave each item a quick inspection with Eyes of the System, Inspect and a good old aesthetic check. Having allocated the information to a lovely brief list, I checked out my loot.

  [Greatsword of Withering. Description: A greatsword forged in the blood of many innocents and now radiates with the power of death. Enchantments: Deals necrotic damage; if the target dies, 40% chance it will rise as a zombie.]

  [Deathbound Plate Armour. Description: A heavy armour made for a Death Knight, forged in the blood of innocents and now radiates the power of death. Enchantments: Causes minor fear debuff on sight.]

  [Deathbound Cape. Description: A cape woven from spider silk and steeped in darkness. Enchantments: +10% Dexterity, +10% Endurance]

  I couldn't speak; all I could do was drop my jaw in absolute shock. One item was useless to me since it added a percentage increase to attributes I didn't have. I could use the other two since they were magical effects and did not require any mana infusion to activate them. But the descriptions made me pause.

  "What the actual hell?" I couldn't help but say aloud.

  The dude was rolling with gear specifically made from killing innocent people. I tried to get the whole dead-orphans thing out of my mind, and this is what I find. Let's not find any correlation, because if that is the case. I might ask Marius to bring these dudes back so we can kill them again.

  But the Death Knight dude seemed like an honourable warrior? Unless killing innocents and making weapons and armour from their deaths was kosher? Who knows what culture this dead dude came from. They might have seen it as pretty normal. Shaking my head at that leap in logic, I focused on what I could do.

  Any righteous individual would destroy these cursed items. But I fought real hard, and I would not leave with nothing. And considering this dude was rolling with innocent blood made weapons, no doubt dickless over there probably has a staff made from baby bones.

  I threw them in my bag, getting them out of my mind. They weren't system-generated items, so overwriting them would be tricky. It would take much more energy to unravel them into their base components. When I had the juice, I was going to wipe them down to standard.

  No way will I be rolling with that kind of gear on full display. Hopefully, Marius had better luck. Frustrated and annoyed, I ascended with a huff, kicked his corpse and made my way to my companion. Jeremy leapt onto my shoulder like a ninja, making his presence known with a soft meow.

  "You can use that dude as kitty litter." I pointed at the death knight.

  Jeremy didn't react and instead cuddled up next to my face. He was doing his affectionate thing; sometimes it was nice, and other times he scratched my face up for some apparent slight against his royal self. Remaining wary of the fur ball with knives, I approached Marius.

  "What do we have?" I said.

  "The pendant is odd; I can't identify it, and I feel nothing from it. Like a void attached to a string." He explained, presenting the shield pendant I destroyed.

  It made sense he would see it that way; all objects in the System Worlds had some trace of system energy. That was doubly so for system-generated items or items created from system-created skills. Even magical artefacts made outside of the system still had a faint trace.

  My skill in unraveling the system would create items that would appear innocuous, but to anyone with the system, they would be an enigma. Imagine an artefact that didn't produce an essential form of radiation. You could see it, touch and know it's there, but it would just feel wrong.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Handed over to me, and ill check it out."

  He did so, and it was definitely a blank slate. I do excellent work. Not sure what to do with it, I just dumped it in my bag. After that, I quickly inspected a few other items and felt pleasantly surprised.

  [Staff of the Graveborn. Description: Carved from deadwood during a blood moon, the gnarled staff enhances the necromantic power of its wielder. Enchantments: Grants Raise Dead skill, +10 Intelligence, +10 Wisdom]

  [Cryptshroud Robes. Description: A robe woven from spider silk and enchanted with magical defence. Enchantments: +30% Magic Resistance]

  The Lich's equipment was way tamer than what his boy had. Why did the knight get a bunch of child-killer weapons, and the actual child killer has regular crap? It is a mystery they took to their graves.

  "You take these, Marius; they should complement your skills." I suggested.

  The Necrochanter nodded, swiping the items and donning them immediately. His battered tunic made way for a dark robe and staff. Wearing those, he was totally rocking the necromancer look, especially with the ghosts floating behind him.

  What followed was some more looting; the ghouls had little on them. But the Lich had an old-style brass key that fit the lock of a wooden door hidden behind his throne. I looked into that later and instead sat back on his throne.

  I had my character sheet to inspect, attribute points to distribute and a few additions that needed to be made to my to-do list. In checking my level, I reached a respectable level twenty. I dumped most of my points into force and distributed the rest amongst sense, reflex and cognition.

  My attributes were lopsided in some areas, but some attributes needed to be maintained to offset any side effects. Especially Force and Resilience, which were practically equal at this point.

  With my new attributes and level, I turned my attention to the next step. Thinking back on that fight, I could see several areas for improvement. So, I think ill start with my weapon.

  Sitting cross-legged on a throne once owned by a lich. I pondered how to improve my Aetherblade. Thinking about the battle fought and the deficiencies in my fighting style. First was naturally my lack of skill and technique. However, I couldn't resolve that right now. What I could do is double down on uniqueness.

  When battling the death knight, I attempted a few ill thought out strategies to gain an upper hand over a clearly skilled opponent. One idea was to deactivate my blade mid-battle. That strategy was unwise, now that I think about it. Losing the blade would leave me open to attack, and the strategy only works with the element of surprise.

  Scratching Jeremy beneath the chin, I tried to come up with a better solution. Glancing to the side, I noticed Marius was communing with the dead, singing a few songs to the corpses. There ghosts were at rapt attention during his little concert. I wondered if he got experience points from that.

  I was getting distracted by so many curiosities around me. The System Worlds are an endless untapped realm of mysteries. Even with my look behind the curtain, I'm still as ignorant as most.

  Back at my weapon, I scrutinised the blade and tried to come up with a new method. Something that could take my fighting style to the next level. Or at least make up for my lack of training with cool stuff.

  Raising the handle into the air, I activated the blade. It formed in an instant, with its pre-programmed length. After activating and deactivating it a few times, a glimmer of inspiration came to me.

  Instead of deactivating the blade mid-combat, I could increase and decrease the size. The possibilities for many combat styles were endless. Ranging from lunging at an enemy that exceeds the reach of my blade, decreasing the blade length in tighter quarters. Lengthening and reducing the blade had so many applications that only experimentation was required to discover them all.

  I chuckled like a madman, like Victor about to raise his stitched-together corpse. Deactivating the blade, I placed the item across my legs and manifested my keyboard.

  "Hey Jen, might need your help with the augmentation."

  She replied with a half-remembered song with an ethereal backing harmony and a chorus that just screamed I am here for you.

  We went to work, accessing the Aetherblades' underlying system. The change wasn't that major, just needed to expand the core circuitry to allow for an extra slot. The blade had levelled up a few times and had enough energy to sustain.

  Took nearly an hour of making slight changes here and there, along with several failed tests. One of them had the blade split into two. Which could be useful but not what we were looking for. But eventually, after arduous mental effort and nearly burning out the blade's mana crystal. We added the new feature and needed one last test.

  I rose from the throne and activated the blade. It came to life with shimmering energy vibrating to a razor's edge, extending to the default length. And with a thought, it grew to double its length. Becoming longer than a greatsword. The heft was a bit more but manageable.

  Giving it a few practice swings, I noticed it was a bit more awkward and might require practice at different lengths. Nodding at the success; I tried the opposite and reduced the length to the size of a dagger.

  I felt kind of like a bladed assassin and performed a few practice slashes, calling upon all my skills honed from hours playing ninja video games. Satisfied with my attempts, I deactivated the blade and turned to other endeavours.

  "It was time to work out a ranged attack." I muttered as one item on the to-do list was to be done.

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