[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-awakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier":3,"chapter-awakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier-awakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier-chapter-8":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1480463,1927,"Chapter 8: [8]: A Sun in the Abyss, The Grind","awakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier-chapter-8",8,"\u003Cp>Panic broke out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"He’s a hacker!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Did you see that damage? 9k?!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Run! Just run!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The formation broke. The guild members scrambled over their own barricades.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fleeing into the woods.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>__\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dead Man’s Gorge was exactly as bleak as Sebastian remembered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sky above was permanently choked with thick and swirling grey clouds that blocked out the sun, casting the entire canyon in a perpetual and depressing twilight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ground was composed of cracked obsidian and pale chalky ash.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jagged spires of rock jutted out of the earth like the ribs of some colossal and long dead beast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Zone: Dead Man’s Gorge ]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Recommended Level: 10-15]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a Level 10 to 15 zone, designed for large parties of coordinated players to slowly grind their way through the mid game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ambient noise was a loud blend of clattering bones and low mournful moans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian stood at the entrance of a massive and bowl shaped depression in the center of the gorge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Down below, hundreds of Skeletal Warriors and Rotting Ghouls milled about aimlessly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were heavily armored in rusted bronze plates, wielding decayed spears and jagged swords.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To a normal player, this was a terrifying army of elite mobs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To Sebastian, it was an all you can eat buffet of experience points waiting to be harvested.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He pulled up his interface.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was still Level 4 from the wolf encounter, possessing exactly 100 maximum mana.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His ultimate weapon cost 90 mana to cast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Forbidden Spell: Solar Flare]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he cast it once, he would wipe out a large chunk of the horde, but he would be left with 10 mana, utterly defenseless while the remaining skeletons swarmed him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In a normal playthrough, a Mage would have to sit on the ground and meditate for twenty minutes to recover that much mana naturally, or drink expensive mana potions that had a ten minute cooldown timer due to Potion Sickness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian didn’t have potions, and he definitely didn’t have twenty minutes to sit on his hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He opened his inventory and pulled out a handful of the Wilted Mudroot he had purchased from the Alchemy Vendor earlier.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was Tier 0 garbage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chewing on it raw would normally restore maybe 1 point of mana and give the player a debuff called Nausea that reduced movement speed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian shoved a handful of the dirt covered and foul smelling roots into his mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It tasted exactly like eating a fistful of wet and sulfurous soil mixed with rotting leaves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He gagged instinctively, but forced his jaw to work, grinding the roots down and swallowing the gritty paste.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Instantly, his Chaos Talent flared to life!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Forbidden Alchemy Activated: Consumed Organic Matter.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Digestion Cooldown Bypassed. Toxicity Ignored.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Mana Restored: 150 Points.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His mana bar instantly shot past its maximum, the overflow burning slightly in his veins.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He spat a mouthful of black dirt onto the ashen ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Disgusting.\" He muttered. \"But highly efficient.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He stepped up to the very edge of the cliff overlooking the massive depression.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Down below, a Skeletal Captain spotted him!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Its jaw unhinged, letting out a piercing and skeletal screech that echoed off the canyon walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The entire horde of easily five hundred undead monsters turned their hollow and glowing red eyes toward him and began to charge up the slope.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A tidal wave of rusted bronze and clicking bone rushed toward him, a terrifying avalanche of death!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian didn’t even draw his dagger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He simply raised his right hand, extending his thumb and middle finger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t bother aiming at a specific target. He was aiming at the entire zip code.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He channeled 90 mana into his fingertips, felt the conceptual weight of a dying star settle into his palm, and snapped his fingers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sky above Dead Man’s Gorge didn’t just light up. It ignited!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A sphere of furious and blindingly white plasma dropped from the heavy grey clouds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the size of a small house, radiating a heat so absolute that the air around it instantly warped and tore.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Solar Flare hit the exact dead center of the skeletal horde.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There was no explosion. There was only erasure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The heat was so catastrophic that the physics engine skipped the burning animation entirely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Skeletal Warriors didn’t catch fire. Their bones and bronze armor instantly sublimated into superheated gas!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The shockwave of pure and unadulterated nuclear fusion radiated outward in a perfect and expanding dome of incandescent fury.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The flash blinded Sebastian for a split second, despite the system’s protective filters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sheer concussive force of the displacement wave hit him like a physical wall, throwing his cloth covered avatar onto his back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he sat up and blinked the afterimages from his retinas, the gorge had fundamentally changed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The massive depression was no longer filled with ash and jagged rocks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a perfectly smooth and glowing bowl of molten orange glass.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Five hundred Level 10 and 15 monsters were simply gone, leaving nothing behind but scattered and floating motes of experience points that looked like a localized snowstorm of golden light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, the system caught up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian’s interface didn’t just chime. It shrieked like a dying animal as hundreds of notifications tried to populate his screen simultaneously!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[You have slain Skeletal Warrior (Level 12) x 214!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[You have slain Rotting Ghoul (Level 10) x 187!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[You have slain Skeletal Captain (Level 15) x 12!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Massive Experience Gained!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Level Up! You are now Level 5!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Level Up! You are now Level 6!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Level Up! You are now Level 7!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Level Up! You are now Level 8!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Level Up! You are now Level 9!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Level Up! You are now Level 10!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[MAXIMUM LEVEL FOR TUTORIAL ZONE REACHED.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian dismissed the waterfall of blue windows with a wave of his hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He stood up, brushing the dirt off his starter clothes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had just broken the world record for reaching Level 10 by a margin of several weeks. It had taken him less than four hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Suddenly, the sky above the entire game world flashed with a brilliant and golden light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A booming and ethereal voice echoed from the heavens, heard by every single one of the billions of players currently logged in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT: A player has broken the mortal limits and reached Level 10! The path to the Main Cities is now open!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Player Name: ***]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian had instantly toggled the Hide Identity option the moment the prompt appeared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He needed to be famous for his wealth, not his level.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Being an anonymous boogeyman was far more tactically advantageous in the early days of the apocalypse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He opened the global chat interface, which was currently moving so fast it was just a blur of white text.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>xX_DragonSlayer_Xx:LEVEL 10?! THE GAME HAS BEEN OUT FOR FOUR HOURS!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>HealSlut99:Is this a bug? I’m literally still fighting a Level 1 slime and I’ve died twice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Crimson_Viper:WHOEVER DID THIS, I WILL FIND YOU. ALSO, WHOEVER THE DRIFTER IS THAT HACKED THE BRIDGE, MY GUILD IS PUTTING A BOUNTY ON YOUR HEAD!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>GamerGod420:Bro definitely used mommy’s credit card to buy exp boosts. P2W trash game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sebastian snorted, closing the chat window.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Let them panic. Let them cry about balance. They were playing checkers, and he was preparing for a thermonuclear war.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With Level 10 achieved, his character was no longer bound to the tutorial zone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A glowing and runic teleportation circle materialized at his feet, offering him transit to any of the major hubs in The Ethereal Plane.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t hesitate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He pulled up the map directory and selected the largest, grimiest, and most economically corrupt city on the server.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He needed capital, and he needed it in a place where morals were entirely optional.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Ironhold.\" Sebastian commanded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The runic circle flared, and his body dissolved into a pillar of blue light, leaving the glassed and molten crater of Dead Man’s Gorge behind to slowly cool in the dark.\u003C\u002Fp>",1327,"2026-06-06T03:26:14.673Z",1,"novelbin.me","6b49ae6eef4c6bcf88843d7fc2ddf7bb4bcd7238e161309ac81268d63c6bae6f","awakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier-chapter-9","awakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier-chapter-7",198,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fawakening-a-10-000x-skill-proficiency-multiplier-cover.jpg"]