Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure
Page 29
He had also learned his lesson from the fight with the monkey king, ending the battle before reinforcements could arrive. Certainly, last time he had been tricked into thinking he’d killed all the backup until they sprang out of the ground like mushrooms. But that only showed that anything could happen in a fight, and the longer it dragged on, the more variables could crop up.
With his blazing speed, the imp boss had only managed to shoot two attacks before he was killed, and only one of them had managed to hit him.
Zac touched his scalp as he ran and grimaced as he felt that all the hair on his head had been singed clean off. After a quick confirmation, the same held true for his eyebrows and beard. He didn’t have a mirror with him, but he could only assume he looked like a beggar monk by now.
His body felt drained and burned, and he stopped as soon as he felt the distance was enough. He had consumed almost all his Cosmic Energy during the fight, and the hell flames the imp had spewed out burned his Vitality or soul as well, making him feel truly wrung out.
He sat down on some moss, brought out a bottle of water, and opened up his status page.
Name: Zachary Atwood
Level: 34
Class: [F-Rare] Hatchetman
Race: [F] 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, Full of Class, Rarified Being, Trailblazer, Child of Dao, The Big 500
Dao: Seed of Heaviness – Early
Strength: 175
Dexterity: 59
Endurance: 100
Vitality: 69
Intelligence: 49
Wisdom: 49
Luck: 67
Free Points: 3
Nexus Coins: 545,716
The battle had only given him one level, compared to the almost three from the last herald he killed. He currently felt he was roughly halfway to level 35. That showed just how much harder it was getting to level up the higher his level became. The only reason he kept leveling so quickly was that his killing speed had improved faster compared to the increasing level requirements.
Before doing anything else, he quickly opened his quest page to make sure whether what he’d killed was actually a herald or not.
Off With Their Heads (Unique): Kill the four heralds and the general of an incursion within 3 months. Reward: 10 E-Grade Nexus Crystals, E-Grade equipment, unique building depending on performance. (3/5)
It was indeed the third herald he’d killed. He sighed in relief, elated with finally having moved his quest forward. He had been looking for this boss for weeks and had started to worry whether he would find it in time to complete the quest. But this part was finally solved.
He already knew where the last herald was located, and it was badly wounded to boot. The last missing piece of the puzzle was the general. Zac still had no idea how to locate and eradicate him or her, but one step at a time.
However, the good news didn’t continue.
Zac closed down his quest page in order to allocate his points into Strength and Endurance as usual. This time, something went wrong, however, and he was unable to put his free point into Strength. He put two points into Endurance without a problem, bringing his total to 103. But no matter how many times he tried, he simply couldn’t allocate his last free point into Strength. Zac started getting a sinking feeling in his stomach, worried he might have screwed up quite badly.
It looked like he had reached his cap for Strength. This was extremely bad news, as his main stat was Strength, and he automatically got three points allocated every time he leveled up. Would he be able to level up at all? Would he just lose those three points if he gained a level? What if his Dao Seed improved or he gained a new title?
He didn’t believe that 175 Strength was the limit of what was possible in the Multiverse. Those titans he’d seen in the vision should have had thousands in Strength from the aura they emitted. Therefore, the problem came down to how to increase his limit.
Zac pondered for a few minutes and came up with a few ways that might work. The simplest method, and the one he desperately hoped was true, was that the cap would increase with a set number of points every time he went up a level. Then his problem would be taken care of. If the increase per level was low, he could simply allocate his free points into more Endurance or a third stat.
But if this wasn’t the case, his problem got a lot thornier, because the only other method he could think of currently was getting an upgrade. Both his Race and Class were currently F-grade. If he upgraded one of them, his limits might get increased as well.
The problem was that he had no idea how to do that. Usually in games, you got a class upgrade when you reached a set level. Unfortunately, Zac didn’t know whether this was at level 35, 50, or even 100.
As for Race, he was even more clueless. He had seen no indication anywhere what to do about race, and the only hint he had gotten that it was actually upgradeable was that the grade got added when he’d attained a class.
It might take a long time until he found a solution to this problem. The thought of losing tens of levels’ worth of attributes while he waited for an upgrade made Zac truly sick to his stomach.
Zac’s vision started to close in on him, and his thoughts were getting scattered. Suddenly, he puked out a large mouthful of blood and bile before falling down on the ground.
Something else is making me sick as well, Zac realized just before passing out.
54
Luck
Zac woke up woozy and disoriented, and his innards felt like they were on fire. A sheen of sour perspiration covered his whole body, and he was weakly shaking.
If he didn’t know better, he’d think that he had caught a bad case of the flu. However, he felt that he should be immune to things like the flu or a common cold since his constitution improved.
His next guess was poison, and it felt far more likely. He had somehow been poisoned during his fight, and it started taking effect on him after he left and settled down. His first guess would be the cauldron. He’d just barely touched it when he put it in his pouch, but he did breathe its fumes for a good while.
And it felt far more likely that a creepy imp was concocting poisons down in a subterranean cave rather than a healing potion. If so, he felt that he’d scored an amazing weapon by chance. If just the runoff fumes were this poisonous, he didn’t even dare imagine what the liquid inside would do.
It didn’t help him with his current predicament, of course. The most advanced healing tinctures in his possession were some aspirin and aloe cream meant for sunburn, neither likely to be effective against demon poison. He did have the mysterious azure water from the pond, but he didn’t dare drink it in case it only made things worse. He could only hope to slowly flush it out by drinking lots of normal water.
He had no real appetite at the moment but forced himself to drink a large amount of water. He tried eating some rations as well, but his stomach started churning threateningly at the mere smell of food. He arduously moved some distance in the tunnel, as the pool of his puke had turned the area quite putrid.
Zac took out a Nexus Crystal and started absorbing it after he found a new resting place. Being full of Cosmic Energy couldn’t hurt in case something happened. He actually felt that his body was getting slightly better as he was absorbing the energy, but it could be his mind playing tricks on him.
After a few hours, he had absorbed all the energy he could. If he continued, it would turn from restoration to cultivation, and he didn’t want to gain any experience before he made sense of his situation.
The poison had interrupted his train of thought, but he was still met with the same problem: his capped Strength. If he returned to the mountain, it would only take a day or so of furious monkey slaying to reach level 35, something he was loath to do before he knew his options.
He decided to slow down his leveling speed for now, and
even stop pondering on the Dao. He even took off his gathering-array amulet and put it into his bag in order to not even passively move toward the next level.
He’d focus on his axe technique instead, as that was the only safe option left. Lost over what to do, he opened up his status screen again, staring at the free attribute point. He knew he likely would have to gain a level to see what would happen, risking throwing away his Strength points. But for now, he wanted to look for another method at least for a while.
His conviction of focusing on only one stat had taken a hit from reaching the Strength cap. For now, it was only Strength, but Endurance would be there sooner or later as well if he threw all his points into it now that he couldn’t put anything into Strength.
His eyes lingered on the other attributes, hesitating over what to do. Finally, his eyes landed on Luck.
It was an attribute he had completely put aside since the beginning, as he didn’t want to hinge his survival on something as unreliable as luck. But by now, he was a walking juggernaut. The last fight had been risky, but he had completely overpowered the herald. The monkey king wasn’t his match either and only survived due to his reinforcements.
By now, he could put some points into Luck, as his basic survivability was taken care of. He might not be exactly sure how it would help him, as he couldn’t quantify it. But since he desperately needed a solution to both his Strength-related predicament and finding the general, getting some more Luck couldn’t hurt.
Satisfied with his plan, he placed his remaining free point into Luck, but once again was stopped from actually allocating it.
“Goddamn it…” he muttered under his breath. “System, could you explain what’s going on?” he entreated while looking up.
It was the first time in a month he had tried to communicate with the System, but he was still ignored like the last times. Maybe the System had lost interest in the world soon after the integration and left everything on autopilot before leaving.
He felt that the situation with Luck wasn’t the same as with Strength. He only had 67 points in Luck at the moment, a far cry from the 175-point cap. All his Luck came from titles, and he’d never allocated any points into it so far, and Zac realized that might be the only way to increase his Luck.
Luck had a major difference from the other attributes. All the other stats could be improved even before the integration into the Multiverse. Strength and Endurance were the most obvious, but even things like Intelligence could be slightly improved with active training and a good diet. But there was no way to train up your luck.
If this was true, then getting the titles gave an even greater advantage than he thought, as they improved an attribute that should be static. He still didn’t understand how the Luck stat worked, but it might help him win a battle against someone equally strong but less lucky.
He suddenly wished that Charisma existed as an attribute as well, as getting that stat to over sixty points might have turned him into a handsome hero instead of his current look of a bald creeper.
With a sigh, he allocated the last free point into Vitality, hoping it would speed up his recovery a bit. There was one last thing left that he needed to check out. He brought up his skill window to take a look.
Normal Skills:
Eye of Discernment – Proficiency: A glimpse into the unknown. Upgradeable
Class Skill:
Axe Mastery – Proficiency: Early. The seed of Dao is planted. Upgradeable
Chop – Proficiency: Middle. There is greatness in simplicity.
[Chop] had improved, as he suspected. In his fight with the herald, he’d actually shot out the edge like a projectile, something he hadn’t been able to do before. The desperation in the fight had helped him break through from early to middle stage of the skill.
He truly hoped he didn’t need to be on the verge of death to improve his skills in the future, but it seemed that pushing oneself to the limit was effective in improving not only levels and titles, but even skills as well.
As he was done with everything he could do for now, he closed his windows and helplessly closed his eyes.
It took a whole day before he could move about again, and another until he felt strong enough that he dared resume exploring.
He set course for the area where he had heard sounds of mining a few days earlier. As he approached, he heard some shuffling ahead. He hid in an unlit side tunnel, getting ready for a battle in case the imps discovered him.
To his surprise, the two imps weren’t alone but accompanied by three demons. They did not seem like miners, as they all were holding weapons and carefully looked around. They all seemed to be warrior classes, as none of them held staffs or tomes or the like, and Zac’s eyes lit up when he saw one of the demons actually held an axe of exactly the same make as his own.
He’d originally planned on avoiding the fight, as he didn’t want to rack up a body count, but now he charged at them as soon as they were within a few meters. With a [Chop], two of the demons instantly died, not even having a chance to react. Zac grabbed the remaining one with his free hand and threw the terrified demon down on the ground. With a mighty swing, he ended him as well, leaving only the imps standing. The imps barely managed to start summoning their fireballs before one was decapitated and the other was kicked into the wall, the force breaking most of its bones and killing it.
Zac looted the corpses, then threw them into his pouch. He didn’t love the idea of carrying around a bunch of corpses, but he also didn’t want to just leave them lying there to be discovered. As if answering his prayer, a salamander lumbered into view a few minutes later, and Zac tried throwing one of the demons at it.
It quickly snapped up the body and with a few disgusting chews had eaten him whole, the saliva creating a sickening sizzling sound as its acidic nature quickly melted parts of the body before even swallowing it.
Zac continued to throw bodies at it, and it actually managed to eat the whole party except one of the demons. But it grabbed him with its mouth and, after a glance at Zac, turned around and returned to wherever it came from. It looked like the salamanders truly weren’t a part of the demons’ forces.
Zac continued forward, now holding an axe in each hand. He was delighted to see that the [Axe Mastery] skill still worked while dual-wielding the axes. But after trying it out for a bit, he felt it was very hard and unwieldy to use. He preferred using only one axe, and having a free hand seemed more convenient for him. Even using a dagger in his off-hand felt more natural.
He reluctantly put his second axe in his pouch and continued on. He might just be lacking experience, and he would have a lot of time to train his axe-work if he couldn’t level up for a while. As he walked through the shimmering tunnels, he finally started hearing the droning sounds of tools hitting the hard walls.
Zac knew by now the effort it took to mine the Nexus Crystals. It had taken him quite some effort to dig out only one crystal from a wall, and that was with maxed-out Strength. It seemed as though the dense Cosmic Energy empowered the rock that encased the crystals, making it far harder than it normally was. It was no wonder that new demons kept streaming down into the tunnels from the demon town.
55
Hey There, Buddy
Zac wished he had a mirror to more sneakily look around the corners, but could only work with what he had. He rubbed some dirt on his face and singed scalp to cover his skin, and then wrapped some of the vines around his neck and head. Somewhat satisfied with his camouflage, he carefully peeked around a corner, mostly hidden behind a huge mushroom.
The tunnel Zac peered into contained five miners, and he was surprised to see that most of them used different means to extract the crystals.
Two were using basic pickaxes to gradually chip away at the walls. But each swing only made some tiny chippings fall, proving that their strength was nowhere near Zac’s. If he used one of those pickaxes, he would likely be able to slam a decent hole in the wall, even if the rock was strengthened.
The last miner was slamming away at the wall with a mace, and his Strength was overbearing. Every slam created a reverberating thud that made stone chippings fly.
The miners were all demons who looked well fed and cared for and didn’t really look weaker compared to the scouts he’d encountered. He had hoped that the demons placed their weakest in the mines, which would make Zac’s next actions more convenient. But the Strength of the mace wielder seemed to be even higher compared to the demon with the great sword and black arcs of lightning.
Next to their feet, they each had a sack of extracted Nexus Crystals. The mace-wielder’s sack was filled the most, and the mages were second. It was all these sacks that were the goal of Zac. He had decided to scout out the demon activity in the cave for a bit and steal as many Nexus Crystals as he could. He wanted to see if the crystals could help him in evolving his race or class before biting the bullet and gaining a level to see what happened. He knew he was grasping at straws, but he was really out of options.
Zac based his guess on two things. First the monkey packs. The higher density of energy the packs stayed in, the larger they became. The packs closest to the valley sported the largest monkeys, and a few even evolved to the point of using skills. The second clue came from the imp that was hiding crystals in a stash. He guessed that it maybe wanted to use the crystals for evolving as well.