Leveling Up in Reality... by Slaughtering Chickens!?

Chapter 003

Panic spiked in Glen Johnson's chest. Forgetting he was still hooked up to medical equipment, he violently jerked upright on the narrow clinic bed. The explosive movement viciously ripped the IV needle straight out of the back of his hand. He winced, his teeth grinding together as he instinctively shook his stinging hand.

Drops of clear saline, mixed with a spray of his own fresh blood, flew from the torn puncture wound. The crimson-tinted droplets sailed through the air, splattering directly onto the ancient wood of the soul-bound Upgrade Chest hovering invisibly in front of him.

"Host successfully selected 'Alchemist' as the primary Crafting Class," the synthetic voice droned in his mind. "Omni-Leveling System officially activated. Publishing Beginner Mission.".

"Beginner Mission 1: Potion Crafting. Host must research a low-level potion recipe and successfully synthesize one low-level potion within 24 hours.".

"Reward: 5 Unallocated Stat Points. Note: Host may consume Honor Points to bind these stats permanently, or randomly allocate them to equipped gear at no Honor Point cost.".

"Failure Penalty: Host's physical height will permanently shrink by five centimeters.".

Glen almost lost his damn mind.

When did I choose to be an Alchemist?! he roared internally. He hadn't studied a single day of chemistry, let alone magical alchemy.

Wait... was it because I accidentally splashed medicine on the Upgrade Chest? The absurd realization hit him like a truck. If I had just splashed pure blood on it instead of saline, would it have defaulted my Crafting Class to a Butcher?!.

He tried to rationalize the nightmare. Fine, he could accept being an Alchemist. But how the hell was a total amateur supposed to research and synthesize a functional potion in under twenty-four hours?. And that penalty was absolutely merciless. He wasn't even pushing 170 centimeters to begin with; losing another five centimeters of height would literally ruin his life!.

Before he could finish his internal meltdown, the icy system voice chimed again.

"Host successfully triggered the hidden class protocol. Selected 'Butcher' as the primary hidden class. Publishing Beginner Mission.".

"Beginner Mission 2: Slaughter. Host must slaughter 10 livestock and collect at least one full bottle of livestock blood within 12 hours.".

"Reward: One Blood Essence Pill (Low-tier). Note: Consumption will instantly multiply the user's Vitality by five to ten times for five minutes. Restricted to users under Level 3.".

"Failure Penalty: Host will experience severe, unpreventable rectal bleeding for a minimum of three consecutive days at a fixed time every month.".

Holy shit!.

Glen felt a sudden, violent urge to smash the phantom Upgrade Chest into splinters. This system was absolutely ruthless.

Honestly, the second mission itself wasn't ridiculously hard. Killing ten animals in twelve hours just required the right location. But that failure penalty was purely demonic. It was basically forcing a grown man to experience a brutal menstrual cycle every single month!.

If he actually got stuck with a curse like that, he’d never be able to show his face in public again.

Glen instantly made up his mind. Even if he failed the first mission and lost five centimeters of height, he absolutely refused to deal with a monthly bleeding curse.

Time was running out. Without wasting a single second, he threw his legs off the bed, shoved his feet into his shoes, and grabbed the travel bag Ryan Sink had abandoned on the floor. He turned on his heel and marched toward the door.

"Hey! Your drip isn't finished yet!" the freckle-faced clinic nurse shouted, poking her head out of the dispensary as she saw him making a run for it.

Glen, assessing his physical state as decent enough, waved her off without stopping. "I'm done! Emergency!".

"But we already prepped three bags for you, and you haven't even finished the first one!" the nurse frowned, stepping out. "I can't refund you for the opened medicine!".

"Keep it!" Glen barked. As he passed the dispensary door, he spotted a medical waste bin full of clean, empty IV bottles. He reached in and snatched one out. "This bottle covers the difference! See you!".

Clutching the empty glass bottle to his chest like a brick of solid gold, Glen bolted out of the clinic. The young nurse stared after him, utterly dumbfounded. She checked the prescription sheet, thoroughly confused. She hadn't given him the wrong medicine, but the guy was acting like a total lunatic.

Cluck, cluck... SNAP..

That made ten. And the IV bottle was filled to the brim with fresh chicken blood.

Standing in the grimy back alley of a live poultry stall at the local morning market, Glen tossed a blood-drained, twitching rooster into the churning defeathering machine.

After fleeing the clinic, his sole focus had been figuring out how to finish the second mission quickly. Wandering into the morning market, he had spotted the stall owner preparing to slaughter a chicken for a customer. Driven by sheer desperation, Glen had lunged forward and insisted on doing the deed himself.

Naturally, the woman thought he was insane and refused. Left with no choice, Glen had slammed two hundred bucks onto the chopping block, declaring he wanted to buy the right to do all the stall's butchering for the day.

His excuse was that he was naturally cowardly and needed to slaughter a few chickens to "train his guts.".

The stall owner, not one to pass up a wildly profitable and lazy deal, happily pocketed the two hundred dollars and handed over the butcher knife.

It worked perfectly. The second Glen slaughtered the first chicken, the Omni-Leveling System chimed, logging the mission progress at 1/10. Furthermore, with every single chicken he killed, his experience bar ticked up by exactly 1 point.

A dark realization crossed his mind. If he stayed here and slaughtered a hundred chickens, he might just hit Level 2 right in the middle of a poultry stall.