It was just a few minutes ago when Jake Smithson put the squawking, flapping vulture out of its misery with a smack to its skull.

'Who knew that its wings were its weak spot?' Jake asked himself as he saw his points go from zero to a thousand.

'Well, that figures. Something this difficult would give this much incentive.

And now I have to hunt twenty-one more of them to afford the package I want – but it's not going to be a walk in the park, pun intended, because I'm hunting flyers now.

Wouldn't you know it, I don't have anything to throw or shoot.'

Another one of those Iron-Beaked Eagles saw him and swooped downward.

'The only efficient way I can do this is by playing chicken – har dee har har – with these giant vultures.'

He had long since ripped his shirt up into strips and used them as makeshift bandages – despite his physical defense going up to 4, those sharp beaks still cut him open in places.

Granted, those cuts weren't deep, but they did warrant him having to bandage himself up lest he collapse from blood loss.

But knowing what he did now after taking out the first Eagle would really help when facing the second.. third.. and fourth.

'Good news is that the defense package I bought really helped. I still have to keep it together.

They're fast, though. Breaking their wings will mean I'll have to time my swings perfectly, kinda like those arcade ticket machines. A bat's a bad choice for hunting birds, and a wooden one at that, too. But, as they always say, nothing worthwhile comes easy.

I'll just have to hit them as they pass me by.'

He tightened the bandages on his arms as soon as he was finished with the second Eagle, using the beak from the first Eagle he killed to pry off the beak from the second one's skull.

'Just three so far,' he noted, before looking to the sky and seeing it already beginning to turn orange. I'm going to have to pace myself from this point onward.

'It's been quite a long time since the sky began to turn dark. Different day and night cycle from Earth... I get it.'

He was just about done with stashing the important loot he had just recently acquired into his inventory when he heard some familiar voices below, just as the first stars were beginning to show up in the sky.

"You motherfuckers! Keep it together!"

'This sounds familiar,' he thought as he made his way down to the base of Mount Mushin, where the voices where coming from.

It wasn't that far from where he was – about two hundred meters or a minute's worth of running – and from his vantage point he could see a bunch of people gathered near the base.

Their faces were familiar: Seamus and his mostly female entourage and/or hangers-on – who were giving him grief earlier in the morning.

'The women looks like they're healing one of their own,' Jake observed, and stopped when he saw just how bad it was.

'That looks nasty. Seems like one of them was nearly maimed by a Eagle's attack.'

And all this was due to just one of these vultures.

'...I wouldn't blame them. Based on what's going on, Seamus and the other two front liners are defending the healers, the vulture struck their only ranged attacker, and the healers can't help shoot down the bird if they're too busy putting Humpty Dumpty back together.'

The Eagle made another pass, and Seamus screamed out loud.

'That was a scream for help if I ever heard one,' Jake thought, and he was already moving.

In times like these, people tend to help out in situations like these; it's not easy to turn your back on people who have been severely hurt.

Also, the Awakeners here were living normal lives not too long ago.

Yet, as he was taking steps down the hill, he was suddenly struck with some doubts.

'Should I help them after all the grief they put me through in Brino?'

Jake had to give a brief thought to help Seamus and his party. After all, he was just an ordinary company man on a nine-to-five job trying to feed his shopping addiction just a few days ago.

'I could spare them a moment.

But I don't want to.'

He was reminded of the time at work when a manager took the credit for all his hard work.

Jake knew from his experiences that sometimes people repay your kindness with treachery.

Based on what he saw from Seamus and his hangers-on, they sounded like the same kind of people..

..and the urge to help them somewhat faded as he saw the archer finally stand up and take up the bow in her hands.

'They'll be fine. There's only one eagle. If they recover from the panic, it won't be that difficult for them to take one bird down. Seriously though, I hope they stay quiet and stop nagging at me when they get back in town after this.'

As he turned his back to them, he could hear Seamus' screams of obscenities at him as the bird passed by again. The sound of swords clinging and arrows flying in the air gave Jake confidence that he made the right choice.

"You won't get anywhere with people babysitting you, not in this world," he said, before heading further up the mountain to hunt more of the Iron-Beak Eagles. "Besides, if I helped you, you'd get in the way of my farming."

***

He could almost hear the angels singing when he finally put his hands around the hilt of his brand-new Swiftstone Sword.

The sensation flowing through him was not unlike falling in love – his face was flushed, his heart was beating a mile a minute, his eyes were filled with sparkles.. and his attempts to lift the thing were not working.

"Wait, what the fuck's going on here?" Jake cried out as he tried to pull the sword from his inventory.

Emphasis on try, as after several futile minutes, the only thing he managed to pull was his shoulder.

It took him a moment to understand why after checking the item information.

[Swiftstone Sword

Required Strength: 40]

"You've GOT to be shitting me! All this effort for a sword I can't lift with my stats right now?!"

After closing his inventory and looking towards the skyline of Mount Mushin, he calmed down a bit.

"Well, even my meager salary couldn't cut it with my shopping habit – I needed to work part-time and overtime if I wanted something quickly," he whispered to the early morning air. "This needs a plan of some sort: and that plan is to gain the 40 Strength I need to use this brand-new Swiftstone Sword of mine!"

Nobody heard him make the grand declaration, but the plan itself was simple enough: gain a ton of points and buy enough Tome of Strength books to get to 40.

If Jake thought 16 was enough Strength for now, the sword in his inventory said otherwise – thus the plan.

"Looks like I have nothing to offer the Awakening Store but my blood, toil, tears and sweat," he said, his mind now made up. "No going back to town until my strength is enough – and that is that!"

What Jake didn't realize was that if he did go through with his plan to grind until he had enough for 40 strength, it would make him one of the strongest Awakeners in Nohas, period.

He needed 24 strength to get to where he wanted to be, and that was the equivalent of eight levels gained.

As Jake turned back to the vultures in front of him, they began to caw in despair, as if they have sensed their destiny upon them.

But at the same time, there were others who were in a deeper despair than those vultures.

***

Meanwhile, in a familiar back office, more pandemonium was ongoing.

"Kelderian!" one of the analysts said. "We have another problem!"

The current head of the Nohas back office walked over to his subordinate with the solemn gait of a convict walking to the executioner's axe.

"What is it this time?"

The analyst showed him the logs.

"Well that's just fine and dandy," Keldarian declared after raising his hand to silence the room, sarcasm dripping from his voice as he made the declaration. "Our friendly neighborhood hacker just got himself a Swiftstone."

Once more, pandemonium ensued in the office.

"Are you fucking kidding?"

Kelderian never bothered to call out the analyst's language; he felt the same way.

"We put a timed sale on purpose."

"How could he buy it in so short a time?"

"What the hell is that guy, already collecting that much points?"

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"Besides, he had to get the parts too. The Iron-Beaked Eagles are a good two tiers ahead of the goblins and orcs they should be fighting."

"I have no clue," Kelderian said, quieting his staff. "Let's check the logs, something seems to be off."

Kelderian and his analysts had agreed on one thing from the moment they began damage control: it was the Werecrocodile that served as the flashpoint that led to this near catastrophe.

Because of Jake defeating the Werecrocodile ahead of schedule, he was able to get 10,000 points and purchase the physical defense tomes to be able to hunt monsters two tiers above his stat line.

Wouldn't you know it, due to this, the balance of power among the Awakeners was already beginning to unravel starting from that point.

"Damn it.. the dimension managers might give us crap about this. Are monsters weaker in this area than others? Are the monster's powers sealed and downgraded?" an analyst intern asked.

"No.. that's not possible. Our beta testing team checked and re-checked that the way to earn points or the difficulty is the same across all dimensions. "

"Then what the hell is that guy?" the senior analyst asked.

"Maybe it's one of those once-in-a-generation geniuses?" Kelderian's assistant asked. "If that's the case, then it would make sense for him to be able to connect to the Awakening Store despite it still being in beta."

"Yes, he must be a genius of some sort. Damn our luck," Kelderian fumed, just as he and his team mistook the shopping addict for a Renaissance man.

"So what should we do?" the Customer Delight Operative asked. "This guy has been asking me questions continually via our 1:1 inquiry system. Should I ignore him, then?"

"No, that's not what we do here!" Kelderian replied, aghast that his subordinate would even consider such a thing.

"We're a service provider. This is what we do. What do you think management will do if they see you ignoring a customer? But yes, we do need to do something about this."

"What kind of something?"

"We'll have to take action."

"What kind of action?"

"Something long-term," Kelderian replied. "Something that will take him a long time to buy. If he spends a long time trying to buy one thing, we will buy time for other Awakeners to catch up to him."

"What kinds of items we do have for such plan?"

"He purchased the Swiftstone Sword right now, correct? Let's bring out the 'Cherry Blossom Weapon Art Set'."

"'You mean Cherry Blossom Sword Art set'?"

Kelderian suddenly grew a tic as he explained it. "Yes.. that's exactly the one. It's a legendary manual containing rules on how to wield the blade masterfully. However, that isn't going to go well with the Swiftstone. We'll give him all the freaking time in the world to save for it so he doesn't rush to get it and buy us the time we need."

Cherry Blossom Sword Art is not a beginner friendly item.

Nonetheless, when learned, this skill was good enough to be used outside of the beginner's zone. When mastered.. the world's your oyster.

Only those who have access to the Black Label Awakening Store may find out what it is.

"Not everyone can get that item," the intern said after reading the description of the item.

"That's what matters!" the senior analyst said. "First, to qualify for purchasing the skill, you need to finish the 'Impermanence of Cherry Blossoms' sub-quest by submitting sixteen Cherry Blossom Fragments. You'll need to acquire them by getting the Cherry Blossom itself, which is a rare drop, I might add, and you have to throw that Cherry Blossom into the air and THEN slice it into sixteen pieces.. in midair!"

The analyst took a breath before continuing.

"You think our resident genius is going to get that easily with a sword as large as the Swiftstone? He can, but it's going to take him a HELL of a long time to do so, enough time for other Awakeners to catch up and balance Nohas again!"

On paper, it was a pretty good plan. The skill item was not easy to buy even after entering the Black Label Awakening Store, the conditions to learn the skill were very strict and required rare drops.

"All things considered, boss, that's a genius plan," Kelderian's assistant said.

"Of course," the head of the back office replied. "I didn't get to where I am without hard work and random bursts of inspiration."

The entire back office shared a satisfied laugh, pleased that they had finally slowed down their resident game breaking genius.

"By the way.." the intern asked after everyone had laughed, "what if he buys the skill too quickly?"

"Hey, don't be ridiculous," the customer service agent said, "Now you're just being overly paranoid."

"I'm just saying.. what if it did happen? What should we do?"

Kelderian imagined such a situation happening.

And at the moment he was able to imagine the situation happening, his mood quickly did a 180-degree turn.

"You know what we should do? We should tuck our heads between our legs and kiss our asses goodbye. Do you want to know why? The Swiftstone sword is something that doesn't show up in this dimension at this point. It's heavy, sharp, and has amazing attack power. Imagine someone with that sword with the skill of the Spider Lily School. We're looking at not just a continent-ending incident, we're looking at Nohas being quarantined just for game balance!"

"Don't talk about it. Don't even think about it," he said as he collapsed onto his table, waving his underlings way. "I don't want to imagine what would happen in case that scenario of yours really did take place."