Growth Period (3)
Tenth Recommended Trait: Surpassing Limits
This trait is closely tied to the training system and offers tremendous help for long-term growth.
Simply training, however, will not raise your stats easily.
◈ When subjected to a “load” higher than your current stats, chance to increase those stats (max 5%).
◈ While the effect is active, each additional training session raises the stat gain by an extra 1% (max 10%).
With this trait, even ordinary training yields maximized results.
Combined with the Hidden Lineage trait, it can truly shine.
But if you commit all three trait slots to pure growth just because you are running a Hidden Lineage build, you will struggle to clear the early bottlenecks. Think carefully.
Grey Dawn is a game that flaunts high difficulty from the very start, so you must maintain at least the minimum balance needed to survive the opening stretch…
We had to walk a long way.
Even though my pace now was more than ten times faster than when I had been an ordinary person, the village where I had lived was so remote that finding another settlement still took considerable time.
After a full month on the road, the place we finally reached was a vast city gleaming with a grayish light.
From a distance it looked as though it had been built of the same stone as our old village. Up close, however, its surface flashed and reflected light.
Silver?
The thought came naturally, yet silver would have been softer than stone, so that was impossible. More likely it was some metal that existed only in this world, one I had never known.
Even before we entered the city, the gatekeepers’ stares burned into us. When they asked where we were from and I answered honestly, they pinched their noses and scowled as if we reeked.
“Get lost. We have no intention of taking in cast-off strays from some scrap village.”
“Hey, that’s a bit harsh.”
Ger, listening beside me, bristled at once. The gatekeeper raised a fist without hesitation.
Exactly what I had been waiting for.
I closed the distance in an instant and drove my fist into his jaw. His head snapped sideways, eyes rolling; the moment his body swayed I put everything I had into a blow to his gut.
Thud.
He lifted clean off the ground and slammed into the massive closed gate behind him.
Boom!
The impact rang out like a gong. Unlike the gates back home, this one did not so much as budge—no crack, not even a scratch.
“Whoa.”
Ger seemed more astonished that the gate was intact than that I had launched the guard.
Another gatekeeper burst out from inside, face pale with shock. This time Ger stepped forward. Fists flew in a rapid exchange. For a few exchanges they looked evenly matched, but Ger ultimately won.
“Hah… hah… Still damn strong, though. Been a while since I had a fight like that.”
We opened the city gate ourselves and walked in. The heavy metal doors swung slowly aside, revealing the gray cityscape beyond.
Without giving ourselves time to adjust to the unfamiliar air, we began searching everywhere for information about warriors.
The back alleys felt the most familiar. No one else was going to treat two kids from the Abandoned Village kindly. The alleys were no different—except that the law of the strong was laid bare there more nakedly than anywhere else.
Ger and I reached the same conclusion: we would take over this city’s underworld. We needed a place to stay anyway, so we decided to carve out our own territory.
Within a week we had seized control of the back alleys of a city three times larger than our hometown.
Surprisingly, one man had given us real trouble—the previous boss, a fellow named Tol. He, too, seemed to have broken through a wall. Yet the gap between us was strangely large. I attributed it to the difference that came from a full year of systematically refining my own experience.
“Warriors are the hands and feet of the king who rules our entire race. Even here you’ll rarely see one. Maybe once a month? Twice if you’re lucky. And even then it’s hard to catch their eye—they just patrol briefly and leave.”
Tol was half again as big as either of us, yet the sight of him kneeling meekly looked thoroughly awkward.
“But, big brother, your body’s smaller than mine. How are you so strong?”
“You broke through a wall too, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“So you think bigger automatically means stronger?”
“Isn’t that obvious? Why else would I have bulked up like an idiot?”
Only then did I understand that enlightenment arrives differently for each person.
Does the difference in that enlightenment ultimately become the difference in skill?
It looked like a simple world ruled solely by strength, yet within that strength lay countless textures. Even among the strong there existed depths that were never the same.
A month passed. In that time Ger and Tol sparred several times; Ger won by a narrow margin. Tol was stronger in pure power, but Ger’s technique was more refined. A few more matches and Tol might have turned the tables. Ger seemed to sense it too, and threw himself into training with even greater desperation.
Then one day—
“Big brother! He’s here! A warrior’s appeared!”
Tol came running, breathless, excitement and tension mixed on his face.
At last the moment we had waited for had arrived.
I hurried to the place he indicated. From a distance I saw a man with straight black hair tied neatly back, dressed in clean, dignified white. On his chest was a droplet emblem that held a blue light—according to Tol, the mark of a 3rd Class Warrior.
The warrior ranks ran from 3rd Class to 1st Class, with the Special Class serving as the king’s personal guard. He was the lowest rank, yet still not someone to take lightly.
I stepped into his path.
“What is it?”
“I want to become a warrior.”
“…Don’t bother.”
He walked past me with the weary expression of a man who heard the same request hundreds of times a day. I felt a little sorry, but there was no other way.
I cut in front of him again. One of his eyebrows twitched.
“You want to die?”
“I don’t think I will.”
The warrior let out a short sigh and shook his head. Yeah, he’d probably heard that line before too.
“Give me a chance to prove myself.”
“….”
He stared at me in silence—then vanished from my sight.
A chill raced down my spine. I ducked on pure reflex. Something lethal skimmed over my head.
If that connects, I’m out cold at least…!
There was no time for even that thought. A knee was already rising into my vision. I twisted hard, avoided it, and rolled across the ground.
This won’t work!
I had been ambushed; the initiative was completely his. The gap in skill was obvious. I could not reverse the situation by force.
I have to take one hit.
Instead of scrambling up I curled tight, bracing for impact. The instant I settled into a defensive crouch, a crushing blow slammed into the arms shielding my head. My body bounced and tumbled across the dirt, but I used the rebound to spring back to my feet.
I tried to raise my numb arms—no strength answered.
What the—!
Before I could panic, a fist was already filling my vision. I snapped my head sideways and spun with the motion, using the rotation to lash out with a kick. My foot cut empty air. In that same heartbeat his fist crashed down on my skull.
Boom—
A crater opened in the ground; dust billowed. My brain rattled inside my skull. I was lucky it hadn’t split open. As the overwhelming shock dragged me toward blackout, the warrior snatched me up and slapped my cheeks a couple of times.
Through the stinging haze I forced my blurred eyes open.
“Where did you learn martial arts?”
“I… didn’t… learn…”
“Don’t lie. You figured it out on your own?”
“Ugh… dizzy…”
“Hey.”
“Stop… shaking… me…”
I couldn’t hold on any longer and blacked out completely.
When I opened my eyes I was being carried on someone’s back. The broad, hard surface felt exactly like the stone bed I used to sleep on in the Abandoned Village.
“Awake?”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who recognized you.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you ask me to make you a warrior?”
“Oh. Right.”
The hazy memories slowly returned, and with them a splitting headache—like a hammer pounding the inside of my skull.
“Ugh…”
“Stop whining.”
“Ever heard of phantom pain?”
“What’s that?”
“…Anyway, what do you mean you ‘recognized’ me?”
The warrior cleared his throat several times, clearly stalling.
“I’ll make you a warrior.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve got my eye on you.”
“Shit.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
The words had slipped out before I could stop them—standing in front of a man who could kill me with one punch. The phrasing had just been that creepy.
Anyway, he was going to make me a warrior, right?
“Where are we headed, by the way?”
“To become a warrior you need training. You don’t just become one because you want to.”
“I see.”
I nodded obediently, but another thought circled in my head.
Was it all right to leave Ger and Tol behind like this?
…Well, they’d find their way. Tol maybe not, but Ger would definitely become a warrior. We had a promise.
I ran with the warrior—Jagan—for more than a week until we reached a deep, vast forest. Pushing through the dense curtain of trees, we came upon a huge cave that looked ready to swallow us into darkness.
It was no ordinary cave. The entrance was sheathed in black metal, more like a fortress wall than rock. Faint shouts of exertion leaked from within. Even at a glance the place looked deep.
Jagan led me inside. We descended a long flight of stairs that appeared out of nowhere, and the source of the shouts finally came into view.
A colossal underground chamber. High ceiling, wide floor packed with people. Bald men in identical clothes repeating identical movements—a den of them.
An army?
The thought flickered through my mind. Jagan left me standing there in a daze and went to speak with someone. Moments later the man he had spoken with strode up to me.
“What are you standing around for like an idiot? Get your head on straight!”
“Ah—yes. I’m focused.”
“Listen to that answer. You call that focused?”
“I’m focused!”
I answered on instinct, yet my eyes slid sideways to Jagan. The man who had not smiled once in an entire week now wore a deep, malicious grin that said, Your turn to suffer, you bastard.
A year passed in that hell.
“Top of this class—Bell! Step forward!”