Eon returned to Illusion Tree without fanfare.
He resumed a routine that would appear inefficient to most players. Not because it offered optimal rewards, but because it anchored him.
In the mornings, he helped Martha set up her shop. Crates arranged in measured order. Inventory accounted for. Awning secured against the coastal wind. He carried boxes for Herman until the older man stopped protesting and simply pointed to where they should go. He attended cooking lessons from the baker, hands steady as he learned ratios and heat control, not for buffs, but because repetition built familiarity. He lingered by Elara’s stall longer than necessary, speaking about nothing in particular. He sold excess loot to Boros without bargaining aggressively.
Integration was not achieved through transactions alone. It required presence.
He also visited the rundown library near the edge of Haven’s Reach. The structure leaned slightly, as if tired of standing. Dust settled thick across shelves that most players ignored. There were no manuals on unarmed combat. No advanced martial treatises. Nothing that would refine his fists into a formal system.
But the library held something else.
Accounts of early settlements. Fragmented histories of the coastal regions. Myths regarding the forest line to the east. Descriptions of ancient conflicts predating player arrival.
Combat did not always require technique. Sometimes it required context.
Seven days had passed since he began isolating the anomaly of the goblin variants.
He documented every encounter.
The first pattern was temporal, but not bound to clock cycles. Bow and staff goblins never appeared early into a grind session. They only emerged after hours of sustained extermination. It did not matter whether the sun was overhead or the moon had risen. Time of day was irrelevant. Duration of engagement was not.
The second pattern was exclusivity.
They appeared only when he farmed the area.
He had tailed other players for extended periods, maintaining distance, observing their engagements with ordinary sword, spear, and dagger goblins. Not once did a bow goblin or staff goblin manifest under their presence.
The third pattern was escalation.
The longer he remained in a single location, eliminating wave after wave, the more capable the variants became.
Standard goblins did not change. Sword goblins swung with the same crude arcs. Spear goblins maintained predictable thrust intervals. Dagger goblins retained their shallow flanking attempts.
The variants evolved.
Bow goblins first learned to track him in darkness, negating the advantage of low visibility. Later they fired two arrows in staggered sequence. Eventually they adopted mobile tactics, releasing shots before retreating behind terrain, forcing pursuit.
Staff goblins followed a similar progression. Initial encounters involved simple fireballs. Then came fire lances with narrower trajectories and higher penetration. After prolonged grinding, they began chaining spells—initiating the incantation of the next cast before the first projectile resolved, compressing recovery windows.
This was not random mutation.
It was accumulation.
Eon considered the variables.
He was classless.
Without a class, he gained no visible experience points. The system displayed no numerical growth. No progress bars filled. No level increments registered.
But the absence of display did not necessarily imply the absence of process.
If experience existed as a systemic resource rather than a player-exclusive reward, then his repeated kills would still generate it. Only he had no assigned container to receive it.
Experience without a vessel must flow somewhere.
Each extended grind session preceded the appearance of a variant. The longer he continued, the stronger they became.
A simple redistribution model formed in his mind. The experience generated by his kills did not disappear. It accumulated within the local spawn pool. When a new goblin instantiated under specific stress conditions, that stored value transferred into it, elevating its internal parameters.
He did not see the numbers.
The system did.
That would explain exclusivity. Other players absorbed their experience normally. Nothing accumulated unnaturally within their zones. Only in his presence did surplus value remain unclaimed.
Only around him did something grow.
It was not generosity from the system.
It was correction.
If a variable could not increase on one side, balance demanded increase elsewhere.
The conclusion was provisional, but it was the only one consistent with seven days of observation.
He stood at the forest’s edge as the sun began to lower. Orange light stretched across the tree line, thinning into dusk. The goblin camp ahead was quiet for now. Standard types moved between crude structures. No archers. No casters.
Not yet.
Eon adjusted the wraps around his fists.
If he continued farming here, the variants would return. Stronger than before.
He turned back toward Haven’s Reach.
The sky dimmed gradually as he walked. Town lanterns flickered to life one by one. Familiar voices carried through the air. Martha closing her shop. Herman locking storage doors. The baker sweeping flour from the threshold.
Integration by day.
Escalation by night.
Another idea came to him as he walked.
NPCs have levels.
He had seen it before. The town guards had levels. Some shopkeepers had low levels. Even the baker had a small number when checked carefully.
Levels mean growth.
If he cannot receive EXP because he is classless, that does not mean EXP disappears. The system still creates it when monsters die. It must go somewhere.
So far, it seems the goblins are receiving it. That is why the bow and staff goblins become stronger over time.
But what if they are not the only ones who can receive it?
What if NPCs can also absorb that unused EXP?
The thought made him slow his steps.
In Arcane Odyssey, he tried to plant a seed. He tried to pass knowledge and structure to NPCs so they could continue even if players left. But the world ended before that seed could grow.
Illusion Tree is different.
It is still running. It is still growing.
If goblins can evolve because of unclaimed EXP, then maybe townspeople can grow stronger too under the right conditions.
Could Martha gain higher levels over time? Could Herman become stronger without knowing why? Could Haven’s Reach slowly improve because he farms nearby?
His mind moved quickly through the possibilities. Distance. Frequency. Conditions. Limits.
It almost felt like the system was showing him something.
As if it was giving him another chance.
The seed can grow here, he thought.
He walked through the gates of Haven’s Reach as the sun finally disappeared.
This time, the world was not ending.
And maybe, this time, he would not fail.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWfVLbIog4e
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He logged out of the game and leaned back in his chair. The room felt quiet without the sounds of wind and combat. The monitor returned to his desktop. It was time.
Illusion Tree had a forum. Every serious game did. In Arcane Odyssey, he had spent hours reading guides written by others. He had rarely written anything himself. Back then, he followed existing paths. Now, he would document his own.
He created an account.
The name was simple. Eon.
His first post was about Goblin variants. He wrote carefully, step by step, as if he were teaching someone who had never held a weapon before. He explained how the smaller Goblins moved faster but had less health. The larger ones were slower but hit harder. The ranged type preferred distance and would retreat if pressured. He described what he learned while farming as classless. Without a class bonus, positioning mattered more. Timing mattered more. Pulling enemies one by one was safer than rushing into a group. Let the terrain help you. Fight near rocks. Avoid open fields when archers are present.
He did not speculate. He only wrote what he had tested himself.
When he finished, he set the post to be viewed by friends only.
He had no friends on the forum.
That was fine.
For now, it served as a private record. A structured memory. If one day he encountered someone who shared his way of thinking—someone who believed Illusion Tree had deeper mechanics waiting to be uncovered—they would only need to add him as a friend. Everything he had discovered would already be there.
Information was the lifeblood of growth. The more precise it was, the more valuable it became. So he preserved it for the future.
Then his thoughts shifted.
House of Spiders.
Should he recreate it here?
The name carried history. In Arcane Odyssey, HOS had not only been strong in battle. It had been powerful in wealth. They had controlled trade routes, rare drops, and raid rewards. At one point, their vaults held more currency than they could reasonably spend. Gold had stopped meaning anything.
They no longer traded in money.
They traded in items. In crafted equipment. In rare materials. In written agreements and long-term contracts with other groups. Power was measured in influence and supply, not coins.
He remembered sitting in guild meetings where numbers were discussed casually, as if they were small change, even when they represented fortunes. He remembered the confidence that came from never worrying about resources.
“I can’t help it. I’m starting to miss those days,” he said quietly to the empty room.
He opened a new tab and searched the requirements for creating a guild in Illusion Tree.
Registration cost: 2,000 Gold.
Minimum members: four, including the Guild Leader.
If the member requirement was not fulfilled within the time limit, the guild would be dissolved. No refunds.
And that was only registration.
A guild required a headquarters. The cheapest one available cost 30,000 Gold.
He stared at the number.
Thirty thousand.
In HOS, that amount would have been insignificant. Here, it felt distant.
He opened a document and recorded the figures. Registration. Member requirement. Headquarters cost.
“This is a problem for future me,” he said.
For now, his focus would remain on testing systems. On understanding NPC continuity. On exploring whether the seed he imagined could truly grow in this world.
A guild was not built on nostalgia.
If House of Spiders returned, it would not be because he missed the past.
It would be because the present demanded it.110Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVDIsuCC7DA
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He shut down his computer and lay on his bed. The room was dark now, lit only by the faint glow of the streetlights outside. He closed his eyes.
Sleep did not come.
His mind kept moving. Gold requirements. NPC continuity. Guild members. Old raids. New systems. Thoughts overlapped and refused to slow down.
After several minutes of staring at the ceiling, he reached for his phone.
He began scrolling.
Short videos filled the screen. Quick combat clips from Illusion Tree. “Top 5 Beginner Tips.” “Fastest Way to Farm at Level 10.” Players showing off rare drops. Then came the trends. Pointless in-game dares. Jumping off high cliffs for views. Challenging bosses with no armor. Some were creative. Most were not.
He kept scrolling.
The algorithm shifted.
A familiar melody drifted through his speaker.
He paused.
It was a cover of Arcane Odyssey’s opening song.
The title read: “Above and Beyond.”
He tapped it.
The arrangement was softer than the original. Slower. A piano intro replaced the heavy orchestral start. The melody was the same, but it carried weight now. Years of memories attached themselves to each note.
Head counts and Inventory checks before raids. Late-night farming sessions. Guild meetings in HOS headquarters. The attempt at the last raid. Then the silence after.
He set the song on repeat.
The first playthrough ended.
It restarted.
halfway into the replay, his breathing had already slowed. The noise in his head softened. Numbers and systems faded into the background.
The melody continued.
This time, he did not hear it all the way through.
He was already asleep.
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and then Add to home screen.