Souls Online: Mythic Ascension
Chapter 171: Level 10

Chapter 171: Level 10

The glow of the world announcement faded, but the silence it left behind was louder than any celebration could’ve been.

No one smiled.

No one moved.

They all stared at the system prompt hovering in front of them:

Congratulations!

You have reached Level 10.

Please proceed to your Designated Instructor to learn a Class Specific Skill.

Leo didn’t say anything at first. He just read it once. Then again. Then a third time, as if the words might rearrange into something less confusing.

"Designated instructor?" he muttered, voice quiet.

Rachel didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze had sharpened to something cold, calculating. Her hands were at her sides, but tension coiled in her posture like a spring waiting to snap.

Lily who at some point began to lean on the counter, straightened herself up

"That... can’t be right,"

she said slowly.

"I got assigned a class. Everyone did. But none of us ever met anyone that we could call an instructor other than our lifestyle professions."

"Maybe there is some information on each of our notices on where we can meet these so-called instructors."

Aria’s suggestion did seem the most plausible so each of the party members checked their own details and did find some things but that raised more questions than answers. The instructor name for most of them was garbled text and the location was merely a set of random coordinates out in the fields.

Rachel’s expression darkened as she stared at the coordinates blinking on her interface.

"This isn’t normal. Not even close."

Leo’s brow furrowed. His supposed instructor was listed as [##Δ₣Unknown₣Δ##], and the coordinates pulsed faintly like a waypoint marker, somewhere deep in the middle of the Forest on the outskirts of the village.

"Mine looks corrupted. Or fake. This doesn’t feel like a feature. It feels like a trap."

Luna, Lily, Aria and Rachel also nodded their heads in agreement while Adam and Crystal’s own gazes were filled with skepticism.

Ouroboros

Instructor: Arachne

Location: Kobold Nest Dungeon Entrance

Empress

Instructor: Eisvir

Location: Spring Lake

Crystal and Adam exchanged a brief look before they shared their screens with everyone. Adam was the first to speak.

"Guys...I think our instructors are going to be Higher leveled beings like Deities and Gods..."

Crystal nodded her head as she calmly remarked

"The being living in my head called themselves the Dragon God and I gave them the name Eisvir which is the name of my Instructor..."

Everyone stared at Crystal.

She didn’t look smug or triumphant. If anything, she looked thoughtful. Still. As if measuring how much to say.

It was Rachel who broke the silence.

"You have something living in your head too?"

Crystal nodded, calm as ever.

"Yeah...I offered to show her something and she ended up in my head, saying it was the most efficient way of doing things..."

Leo frowned at the word ’Efficient’. Something about it didn’t sit right with him.

"Crys..Empress, that doesn’t sound right? What could you possibly offer to show to a supposed God that they themselves don’t have?"

Crystal’s smile was fragile as her lips curved up into a somewhat sad heartbroken smile.

"Emotions."

The word dropped like a stone into the silence.

No one spoke right away.

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. Aria tilted her head slightly, trying to read between the lines. Lily’s playful mask faltered just enough to show the flicker of something far more serious.

Leo opened his mouth to say something, then stopped.

He didn’t know what he could say to that.

Crystal didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to.

The implication settled over them like a heavy fog.

It was Luna who finally spoke, voice unusually soft. "She came with you because you offered her something she couldn’t understand."

Crystal nodded once.

Adam looked away, jaw clenched, as if he already knew. Maybe he had. Maybe he just didn’t want to be the one to explain it. The reason Arachne had settled in his mind was she wanted a front row seat to his revenge.

Leo’s gaze drifted back to his screen. The label [##Δ₣Unknown₣Δ##] pulsed again, steady and patient, like it was waiting.

He didn’t like it.

Lily rubbed her arms as if chilled.

"If these things are gods... why are they tied to us at all?"

"They are not tied to us. They are watching us and investing in us like a prized horse...or cattle to slaughter."

Adam’s brow furrowed as a cold angry voice slipped from his lips. This caught everyone off guard.

His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried weight. Adam didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The bitterness in his words did more than volume ever could.

No one knew what to say.

Lily, usually the first to deflect tension with a lazy joke or grin, said nothing.

Rachel didn’t argue. She only studied him with those sharp, narrowed eyes of hers, the ones that saw too much.

Adam turned his head away, afraid that she would see the real reason why he was here. He did not like being a pawn in another’s game but somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling they were all on a massive chessboard but they were only in the opening moves and yet to face their enemy.

Adam’s words lingered in the air like a knife’s edge, sharp and cold and impossible to ignore. Everyone felt it. The room grew heavy, pressing down harder than any boss fight or system alert ever could.

Rachel finally spoke, her voice low but steady.

"We don’t know what these gods want from us. But if they expect us to just play their game, to be nothing but cattle, they have underestimated what we are."

Lily stayed quiet for a moment longer before shifting her stance and crossing her arms as if readying herself.

"I’m not about to be slaughtered for some divine experiment."

Aria nodded and tapped her screen with a spark of determination. "If we are going to meet these instructors, we need to be ready. Not just physically. Mentally too."

Adam said nothing more. Inside, a cold knot twisted in his gut, a silent recognition that they were trapped in a game far larger than they could see.

Leo swallowed hard and felt a strange mix of fear and resolve twist in his gut. His eyes drifted back to the pulsing label on his screen. It blinked steadily, not harsh or threatening, but warm and inviting. The glow seemed to reach out to him, like a quiet call meant only for him, stirring something deep inside. It was patient and steady, waiting.

As if it knew that Leo would soon answer its call.