In a world where the gods gift a chosen few with great powers, Sam Shepard could be counted among the weakest of the weak. His crappy healing ability can’t even cure minor injuries without having to drain Sam’s own life force to do it. Hero society doesn't think Sam's useful, and after failing to heal those he was tasked to save, Sam couldn't help but agree. But it turns out that giving up the hero's life isn’t easy. Not when one’s caught in the machinations of the gods themselves.

After Sam gets pulled into rescuing the hero Thunder, he inherits a strange ability from her: the training system that taught Thunder how to become a top hero. Triple-A apparently holds the secret to leveling up one's power, a feat previously thought to be impossible. Not that it'll be easy to achieve...

A series of challenging missions and the occasional hero lesson from the system’s creator guarantee a lot of cuts and bruises in Sam's immediate future. But at least he finally gets the chance to go from zero to hero. Oh, yeah, there are also ghastly horrors and megalomaniac supervillains to contend with on Sam’s path to becoming the symbol of hope that humanity needs.

Level UP Hero

At first, Sam could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing—as if the senses he’d been born with were suddenly gone and only the emptiness of the void existed around him. Within this darkness, he heard the familiar laughter of the old giant who hounded him even in dreams. 


'You will fail, little hero,' whispered that malevolent voice. 'Pride will rise, and your world will fall.' 


Sam had heard that voice often enough that he no longer felt goosebumps rise on his skin these days, making it easy to shrug off the evil aura that stretched its bony fingers toward his mind. 


'Go away, Lord of Nerds,' Sam growled. 'Wait… that’s an insult to my fellow nerds… It would be better to call you the Lord of the Black Turds.' 


Styx, Part 1