Nothing strange happened.

John Shepherd simply squatted down and placed his skeletal right hand over the pile of bones.

At that moment, he distinctly felt a warm current flowing from the pile of bones into his body!

The warm current was small but continuous.

It lasted for a full thirty seconds.

When the flow finally stopped, a soft cracking sound accompanied the pile of bones, which disintegrated into pale gray ash and scattered with the wind!

It was as if...

Everything valuable within the bones had been devoured and absorbed by something!

Simultaneously, John’s skeletal body underwent some subtle changes.

His bones seemed to thicken slightly.

The color of his skeletal body darkened, gradually shifting from pale white to a more grayish hue.

But that wasn’t the most significant change.

The biggest transformation occurred in John’s status panel!

……

[Name]: John Shepherd
[Race]: Undead - Skeleton
[Level]: 1 (10/100)
[Status]: Health 10, Mana 15
[Attributes]: Strength 0.8, Agility 1.2, Constitution 1.0, Spirit 1.5
[Talent]: Corruption (Unique Talent)
[Skills]: None

……

At some point, his attribute values had quietly changed.

His Agility and Spirit remained the same, but his Strength had increased from 0.7 to 0.8, and his Constitution had risen from 0.8 to 1.0!

As John’s eyes moved down, he noticed three new pieces of information on his status panel:

• "You have absorbed the essence of the bones, and your body has become stronger."
• "Your Strength has increased by 0.1."
• "Your Constitution has increased by 0.2."

The attribute increases shown in the prompts matched the exact changes in his status panel!

“So…”

“This is the effect of my Unique Talent: Corruption.”

John’s jawbone creaked with excitement. If he were anything other than a skeleton, he would have likely burst out in uncontrollable laughter at this surprise.

A Unique Talent!

Corruption!

If his guess was correct, the effect of his talent was that after killing an enemy, he could absorb the essence from their corpse and convert it into his own attribute points!

Second World was a real world.

And it was also a game.

This was because the entire world had been transformed into data governed by game rules.

In such a hyper-realistic game, what mattered most?

Factions?
Classes?
Gear?
Legacies?

No!

The most important thing was attributes!

Increasing health and mana required attribute points; equipping better gear required attribute points; advancing in class templates required attribute points; even achieving legendary status often came with high attribute requirements!

In Second World, whether one was an NPC, a player, or a monster, attributes were the foundation of everything!

Moreover, in such a real game world, attributes were a direct reflection of the body’s strength. Even a foolish creature... if it could stack its attributes to an extreme level, it could become a god capable of challenging the divine!

Outside of leveling up or advancing in class, there were very few opportunities in Second World to increase attribute points. And John’s Corruption talent granted him an additional means of increasing his attributes beyond just leveling or advancing!

Such a talent,
such a powerful skill,
how could he not be ecstatic?

However, John did not let the excitement inflate his ego.

Even with an unparalleled talent, he hadn’t forgotten that he was currently just a lowly skeleton at the very bottom of the undead race, and one of the weakest beings in the entire game world.

Before he could transform his potential into real strength and truly grow strong, cautious development was the way to go.

Once again, John picked up another femur from the bone-strewn ground and lightly moved toward a skeleton several meters away.

Step.
Step.
Step.

Crunch!

As expected, when the femur in his hand broke into two pieces, the skull of the skeleton before him shattered as well. The gray-white bones swayed slightly before scattering across the ground.

“You have killed a ‘Weak Skeleton.’”

“You have gained 10 experience points.”

Without paying attention to the system’s kill prompt, John crouched down again and placed his skeletal hand over the pile of bones left behind.

The familiar warm current surged into his body.

When the second pile of bones had been drained of all its essence and turned into ash, new system prompts appeared on his status panel.

• "You have absorbed the essence of the bones, and your body has become stronger."
• "Your Strength has increased by 0.1."
• "Your Agility has increased by 0.1."