When The System Spoils You For No Reason-Chapter 35 - Thirty Five: Aura Farmers Assembled

The past forty-eight hours in the Expanse had been a whirlwind of shimmering loot, shattered monsters, and a crash course in a fundamental law of this new world—one that everyone else seemed to have received in their Awakening 101 class.

For Zeke, it was a revelation. For Aaron, it was a wall he’d finally run into.

After leaving the Void-Threader’s nest—or cave?—they had embarked on a power-leveling run in earnest: hunting treasures, clearing monsters, pushing limits.

As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

Humans—and everything else in existence—have limits. Some can be broken. Most cannot.

Awakened humans are still human. Their limits hold, biological or metaphysical, and the shape of those limits is determined by one thing: their innate ability.

Awakening transforms the body into something capable of housing and computing that ability. The nature of the ability, combined with one’s biological state before awakening, sets both the starting line and the ceiling.

In simple terms: a higher-ranked ability grants higher base stats, and more importantly, a higher finishing line.

Take Aaron’s situation as an example. His ceiling sits at B-Rank. Someone with a weaker pre-awakening constitution might cap all three base stats at the B-Rank and go no further. Aaron, with a stronger foundation, had pushed all five stats deep into B-Rank before hitting the wall—Strength and Agility had kissed the ceiling, flat and immovable, while the rest settled comfortably within range.

Someone with an even better foundation could push every stat to the B-Rank limit, or nudge a single core stat into the low end of A-tier before the ceiling held firm.

Zeke hadn’t known any of this until now. Thinking back, it made sense. Zero had explained how traits reshaped the body; it followed logically that unchecked stat growth had its own governor. Otherwise, the world would be drowning in SSS-Rank Hunters.

Ah, the woes of the weak.

In a show of solidarity, Kai had stalled his own progression at a tidy equivocal point—all five stats sitting at 540, a clean ten points from A-Rank, where his own ceiling presumably waited.

Presumably.

The prevailing theory in the awakened world: F-Rank innate ability, F-Rank ceiling. The pattern held, rank by rank.

Exceptions existed—dual-ability holders, those born with rule-breaking traits, and S-Rank innate abilities.

S-Rank and above operated in a territory beyond logic, though logic had at least observed the pattern: expect the unexpected. An S-Rank awakened might cap at S-Rank, or blow past it into SS-Rank territory. An SS-Rank could be a limit-breaker or a normie. There was no known method to determine which—only luck and the long wait to find out.

As for Jude, the haul from the Void-Threader had been good to him. Stat potions had pushed him well past B-Rank, even letting him balance his spread—save for Magic Power, where the last three leftover points went to live a quiet life.

Zeke’s read on Aaron’s situation was pragmatic: if the ceiling on stats was fixed, the ceiling on ability was not. Skills and traits didn’t care about rank limits. Quality over quantity.

Aaron burned through three runestones. All B-Rank—which, given the situation, was quietly funny.

The skill: Shadow Step. Short-range teleportation between shadows. Lucky.

The first trait: Combat Flow. Seamless transitions between shadow weaving—his Umbrakinesis—and hand-to-hand or armed combat, for any opponent of his choosing.

The second: Unyielding. Hardened resistance to mental debuffs.

The other two hadn’t been left out of the windfall either.

Kai cracked open a skill runestone and walked away with an A-Rank skill: Flowing Stone Breaker Art.

Jude drew a C-Rank trait, Last Stand—when his health dropped to ten percent, his physical stats spiked a full stage.

...

Makima’s group—Avalon—had split off partway through the second day. The space issue was becoming obvious; with Makima’s squad in the mix, there was barely room to engage before a target was already down. Makima had read the room before anyone said anything, and they’d parted without friction.

Now the group moved at a loose stroll, the dry, mineral-tanged air filling their lungs as they swept the alien horizon for anything else worth bringing back to White Fang.

"Ah~ young masters, you’ve evaded me for three days now. Show yourselves, pretty please~"

Zeke said in a sing-song voice.

Kai exhaled a sound that was more collapse than sigh and kicked a loose glowing pebble into the dust. "Sigh."

"I’m tired of monsters," Jude said, cracking his knuckles. The sound popped sharp in the thin air. "I want a human fight. I thought all your noise would’ve drawn some in by now."

"Not you too." Kai stared at him.

Zeke slung an arm over Jude’s shoulders and laughed, the sound bouncing lightly off the rock formations. "Heh. A true brawler gets it."

Jude’s lips curved. "Mm."

"Your wish might be getting answered," Aaron said, voice low. He tilted his head—boots on gravel, voices on the breeze, still distant but coming.

"Positions."

Zeke called out theatrically.

...

"Who are you? Why are you blocking our path?" A voice cut across the open ground, tight with suspicion and something approaching fear. "Are you after the treasure too?"

"Oh, they have treasure." Zeke’s smirk arrived before the rest of his face. "Classic."

He pushed off the sun-warmed slab he’d been leaning against and took a quick look at the formation.

Jude occupied a jagged slab of dark rock—one leg drawn up, elbow on his knee, radiating the kind of lazy, Madara-esque dominance that made people second-guess themselves. The air around him shimmered faintly with residual heat from his innate ability.

Kai had claimed higher ground on a crystalline overhang, squatting with a wide, predatory grin aimed down at the newcomers like he’d been waiting all day for this exact moment.

Aaron stood at the edge of the path beside a massive weathered boulder, arms folded, his shadow stretching long and dark behind him, his expression carrying the specific kind of mean mug that required no elaboration.

Zeke looked back at the newcomers.

"Women to the right, men to the left." His voice carried clearly across the silence. The smile was easy, unhurried, almost friendly. "This is a robbery."

Aura farmers, assembled.