He prepared some breakfast and sat down in a camping chair to go over yesterday’s results. He brought up the status window with a thought to go over the gains.
Name: Zachary Atwood
Level: 18
Race: Human
Alignment: [Earth] Human
Titles: Born For Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer
Strength: 46
Dexterity: 33
Endurance: 34
Vitality: 43
Intelligence: 29
Wisdom: 29
Luck: 44
Free Points: 0
Nexus Coins: 3,370
He had gained almost three thousand Nexus Coins with just one day of fighting, which seemed quite good. If he based the gains on the amount of Cosmic Energy he got from the different monsters, he could somewhat guess how much each kill gave him. He would say that he had gained roughly one hundred for each demon dog he had killed, and between half as much and double that from the demon hound. The largest amount was rewarded for killing the imp. He still remembered that burst of energy, even though he was almost delirious. If he hadn’t gotten that extra energy boost after the fight, he might not have made it home.
Still, the amount gained yesterday was far short of most of the buildings he had seen in the town-building interface. It made sense, as building a whole town was usually not done by the efforts of only one person. If he had a few hundred people who came together and gathered Nexus Coins, the amount gathered would be massive, even if the other people were far weaker than himself. There simply was power in numbers.
The thought gave him a sense of urgency. It was undeniable that he had likely gotten a quite impressive head start compared to most people, even though he was not too happy with his current situation. But if some great leader emerged in a Tutorial village and created a large force, he might lose his head start. Abby had mentioned that the System liked those that stood in the forefront. If someone was going to get titles and other advantages from building a town first, then it should be him.
It might be better for humanity if some country leader or military general got that head start. But it was the apocalypse, and he had his goals. He needed to be a bit selfish in that regard and couldn’t just give away opportunities to others and hope they would use them for good.
He also noticed that he had a new title, Demon Slayer. It was from the quest he had received in the beginning, which had told him to kill ten demons. The title gave him 3% to all stats when fighting enemies of demonic alignment. However, he didn’t quite understand how the title worked. He should have activated that title somewhere midday, but he had felt nothing different when fighting afterward. Zac guessed that he couldn’t sense anything different, as 3% to his attributes was just one or two in each.
He was somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t received any sort of follow-up quest, along the lines of “Kill 100 Demons.” His other titles proved that there were “higher-level” titles, such as Slayer of Leviathans being stronger than Overpowered. Getting a few more demon-slaying quests might push his advantage against demons a lot higher.
After looking over the status page, he opened the building interface. There were two things that Zac wanted to build, and they cost three thousand Nexus Crystals each.
The first was called an [F-Grade Nexus Node] and looked like a large hovering crystal from the description. Its function was to access certain aspects of the System. Nexus Nodes seemed to have more functions depending on how high grade it was, with F being the lowest. The node was the worst of the bunch, in other words. But it gave access to two functions that Zac was extremely interested in. It gave access to the class system and sold basic skills.
The other was another array, namely the [F-grade Small-Scale Gravity Array]. This was an array meant for strengthening oneself, as he saw it. The subject of training was something he had mulled over from the start. Even before allocating the first 30 points he had gotten, he had noticed that his stats were skewed.
When he counted backwards from his titles and the points he had allocated, he had found out that his base stats differed quite a bit. Before the effect of the System, he’d had 7 Strength, 3 Dexterity, 4 Endurance, 5 Vitality, 5 Intelligence, and 6 Wisdom.
He assumed the normal stats were around 1–10 for most humans, as he was somewhat average before the System arrived. He wasn’t particularly smart and not extremely athletic. He worked out at a gym three times a week, which would explain the Strength. But he was not limber at all, and he rarely did cardio. Therefore, he had lower Dexterity and Endurance. Vitality and Intelligence seemed harder to train, as they were more of an inborn quality.
Since the stats differed and seemed to be affected by his actions before the System arrived, he assumed that he might be able to improve his base stats from training as well. He probably would not be able to improve infinitely, but every extra stat point counted.
That was where the gravity array would come in. It would affect the gravity in a zone and could increase the gravity up to ten times. At this point, he had 46 Strength and was likely stronger than any human who had ever lived on Earth. Without this kind of array, Zac didn’t think he would be able to exhaust himself. He could do push-ups all day without breaking a sweat at the moment.
If he added the array to the camp, he could potentially improve multiple stats, at least Strength and Endurance, as they seemed most linked with the constitution of his physique.
Unfortunately, the descriptions for the buildings were quite short, and both options came with a risk. He had no idea how skills worked and what they would cost. Buying a Nexus Node might be a complete waste of coins at this stage when every advantage was important. On the other hand, he didn’t know if his plan for training even worked with the System.
After some hesitation, he finally turned his eyes toward the array.
17
Eye of Discernment
Zac sat in front of the campfire, and with a blank, silent stare, he slowly rotated a spit placed above it. The suns were setting over his small outpost, and the surroundings had a subdued silence. On the spit was the leg of a rabbit he had caught earlier today. The rabbit had actually grown to the size of a human, so the meat would last for a while.
Tomorrow would mark the twenty-ninth day since the world had changed. If Hannah or even his family were to see him now, they would likely barely recognize him.
The once neat beard of his was now an uneven mess. There even was one patch almost completely missing after a barghest’s claw had cut his face during a particularly intense melee. His hair was even worse, now a mess of uneven cuts. During one of his fights, he had gotten hair in his eyes, and the distraction had caused him to almost get disemboweled. He had fought the gwyllgi half-blinded while using one hand to hold his innards in place. After the fight, he had simply taken his hatchet to his head and cut off as much hair as he could without scalping himself.
He had run out of shirts last week and now used a mix of torn rags to cover himself. Underneath those rags was some makeshift protection he had made from leather he had cured. He had begun by making some bracers for his legs and arms, and a basic heart protector out of the snakeskin he had dried over his car. Over time, he had found another snake and even a crocodile on a shore and had turned those into leather as well.
Now he was decked from feet up to a throat protector in pieces of leather, all tied together with strings or sinew. It was extremely shoddy work, making his whole body looked like a piecemeal patchwork of different animal body parts. It also took almost thirty minutes to take on and off, as there were quite a few knots he had to tie to get it to stay on during a whole day.
Most days, he couldn’t be bothered, as he had been out hunting the whole day and simply fell asleep while still wearing the gear. The combination of high Endurance and Vitality seemed to protect him from any chafing or bruises from the coarse leather anyway.
All in all, he looked like a completely insane hobo and would likely be arrested if he arrived in a real city, based on his appearance alone. Zac couldn’t be bothered about that, though, as almost a month of living on the edge of death had given him a far more utilitarian mindset.
Zac cracked his neck, nowadays barely being bothered by the constant ten times gravity field that enveloped the whole camp. After his first day of grinding, he had bought the [F-Grade Small-Scale Gravity Array] and placed it at a corner of the camp. It had actually proven effective, and he had incorporated a workout in high gravity into his daily schedule. Soon after, he even slept in high gravity, and by now, he always had the array cranked to the max over the whole camp.
Its effect had been above his expectations. He had gained a whole 5 Strength, 2 Dexterity, 6 Endurance, and 2 Vitality from just training his body. His Endurance had increased the quickest, rising up 6 points in just two weeks. He had calculated that he had 4 base Endurance before the System earlier, and now it was 10. However, after it reached 10, it stopped increasing at all. He saw a similar effect on his Strength. He gained 3 points quite quickly, bringing his base Strength to 10. After that, he still had gotten 2 points, but those points took an extreme effort.
He had also gained Dexterity and Vitality, but he guessed that those points actually came from combat rather than the array. Getting hurt over and over had improved his Vitality slowly, and dodging an endless number of beasts had improved his Dexterity.
Zac guessed that the reason for his quick improvements wasn’t only the array. There now was a large amount of Cosmic Energy in the air, and it felt like just breathing it in slowly improved his health. He suspected that humans would slowly grow healthier in this atmosphere, provided that they didn’t get killed, of course. A quick look at his status showed that his stats had improved quite a bit over the last weeks.
Name: Zachary Atwood
Level: 23
Race: Human
Alignment: [Earth] Human
Titles: Born For Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer
Strength: 59
Dexterity: 39
Endurance: 42
Vitality: 48
Intelligence: 29
Wisdom: 29
Luck: 44
Free Points: 0
Nexus Coins: 5,562
Unfortunately, he had not reached his goal even with his gathering array and frenzied carnage across the island. He had hoped to get to level 25 and get a class before the month was over. The advice of the Stargazer still lingered in his head. She had told him to finish the quest of conquering the incursion within a month. He still hadn’t found any clues as to what would happen after the month passed, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.
Gaining levels had proven harder and harder over time, and he had finally reached level 23 today after four days of relentless killing. He had even used almost all his points and spent a whopping seventy-five thousand Nexus Coins on upgrading his Mother-Daughter Gathering Array to E-grade. This upgrade had substantially increased the amount of Cosmic Energy he absorbed daily through his amulet.
It was clear to Zac, however, that the most effective method of getting stronger was to actually battle and kill enemies. If he would split up the Cosmic Energy he absorbed daily, it would be a 90-10 split, and that was with the E-grade array. If he compared with his old F-grade array, it would be 95-5 or even lower. Grinding monsters and absorbing their energy was simply far more effective, at least with his resources.
It did, however, make him think about the elite of the Multiverse. He had made over a hundred thousand Nexus Coins just by grinding low-level monsters during the first month. Abby had said that the Multiverse was hundreds of millions years old. There were surely some extremely wealthy individuals and organizations. What if they gave every child an A-grade or even S-grade array from birth? They would be higher level than him before even learning to talk.
Those things were too far away from him, though; he needed to focus on the present. Even though he hadn’t reached his goal of getting a class, he still planned to try finishing the quest in the following two days.
Zac carved a chunk of meat from the rabbit leg and stuck it to a fork. He then walked over to the Nexus Node while gnawing the gamey meat. Zac looked at the list of available things on it daily, hoping for something new to pop up every day since the day he bought it. He knew he would be disappointed once again. The skills available were too expensive for him, and the inventory hadn’t changed so far.
The only skill that was in his price range was called [Eye of Discernment]. And he had already bought it for the price of twenty thousand Nexus Coins. When he had bought it, a stream of energy had entered his head, and new information suddenly formed like an ingrained memory. It was the manual for the skill.
The purchase had taught him a bit about how skills worked with the System. Having a skill did not mean you could simply use it as you wanted. For a skill to work, he needed to actually move the Cosmic Energy built up in his body toward his eyes. From there, he had to imprint the image of a specific fractal on his eyes. The fractal was the same type of pattern that was on the array flags he had bought earlier.
Zac had tried furiously to move the energy around in his body for days. He had felt that his cells were imbued with this extra power, but he had a hard time actually doing anything with it. Finally, after days of trying, he had found a solution.
While sitting in the gravity array, he had imagined a separate set of veins spread all through his body like his circulatory system. In these veins, only Cosmic Energy flowed. He was surprised that it actually worked, and a stream of his Cosmic Energy slowly started traveling along the paths he had imagined.
It took a few days more to learn to keep the circulation going even when not actively focusing on it. Finally, he tried gathering Cosmic Energy on his eyes to imprint the fractal of the skill. This part went smoother than expected, as he had an extremely precise design in his memory thanks to the Nexus Node.
As soon as he wanted to use the skill, he only needed to focus a small amount of Cosmic Energy to flow into the fractals on his eyes, and it would activate immediately.
Zac was quite glad that the System did not require people to shout out the skill’s name like a lunatic.
The [Eye of Discernment] was a basic eye skill that essentially worked like an identify or spy skill from a video game. It let Zac glean some basic information about certain things.
It was this skill that had let him know that the stocky six-legged demons he had fought ad nauseam the last month were actually called barghest, and the zombie-looking greyhound monster was a Gwyllgi.
The imps were actually just called Lower Imps, and they had taught him another valuable lesson when using the [Eye of Discernment] on them. Even though he had used it from the cover of some bushes, the imp had felt the skill being used on it. It reacted by immediately throwing a fireball at the bush he was hiding in, leading to another desperate fight.
The memory of that fireball still filled him with some trepidation as he stared into the fire, slowly finishing his meal.
18
Cosmic Energy
Actually, apart from teaching him the names of his different enemies, the most important thing the skill had taught him was something completely different.
Zac had thought that the stats represented a static change in his prowess, and to a certain degree, he was right. He was far stronger now compared to before thanks to the stats. But there was more to it. Learning to circulate his Cosmic Energy had opened up a whole new world for him.
At first, he had simply focused on learning the skill. But afterwards, he had started experimenting with the Cosmic Energy in his body and had come to some astonishing conclusions. He could actually force more Cosmic Energy into different parts of his body, strengthening them. For example, he could force energy into his arm and back
muscles when swinging his hatchet, which resulted in a far more powerful swing.
Forcing energy into his legs would increase his speed, and he had even managed to imbue his skin for a while, making it more durable. There were many different venues to utilize it, and he likely only had figured out a few. The strengthening wasn’t limitless, however. It acted as a multiplier on his base stats, but the multiplier was limited. After some experimentation, he had realized he could output almost twice his normal power while circulating his energy into a specific part of his body.
He had gone above this amount once, which had resulted in being incapacitated for days. He had tried increasing the amount of energy in his arms too much in order to perform a particularly mighty swing. His muscles couldn’t withstand that much Cosmic Energy forced into them, and ruptured into a fountain of blood. It reminded him of a balloon. If he blew too much air into it, it would pop. Same with his body and Cosmic Energy.
The experiment had left him lying weakly in his base for three days, only being able to train with the amulet and the gravity array for some minor gains.
The second conclusion was that his usage of Cosmic Energy was limited. The more he circulated his energy and empowered himself, the more drained he would feel. When empowering himself to the limit, he only lasted a few minutes before he was completely spent.
The energy used in empowerment was consumed, and he would need to gather more from the environment in order to get back into fighting condition. His amulet helped him recover faster. But when the amulet focused on replenishing consumed Cosmic Energy, it did not actually work toward increasing his level.
In other words, using empowered strikes or skills would slow his leveling speed, as some of the Cosmic Energy gained would be used on replenishment. So it was a trade-off between long-term gains and short-term bursts of power.
Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure Page 9