Hello everyone! Sorry for the long wait, I could probably give a bunch of excuses, but I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, so here is the third chapter, and the fourth will follow suit, I promise!
So, Enjoy!
The arena had become a bloodbath.
One fairly surprised dragon-slayer quickly overcame his shock, and charged the imps, who surged forward entirely unafraid of the warrior in front of them.
They met halfway, the imps having managed to cover the same distance in a longer time since they started moving earlier.
The force of the clash caused the imp wave to ripple, as the front-liners died in seconds from the vicious clash.
And from there forward, things only got bloodier and bloodier.
Natsu, experienced mage as he was, quickly found their weakness, which he then proceeded to exploit throughly.
Since they had a fairly slower composition, and couldn't surround him due to the largeness of the arena, they just kept coming towards him running as fast as their little legs could carry them, and Natsu would meet the clash head-on, land a fire roar, hit once or twice, and then back of before they could overwhelm him.
Rinse and repeat, he would barely be scratched while dealing heavy damage, as his MP gradually dropped.
By the time he finished the Arena had become a burial ground for heavily wounded (read mutilated) and charred imps.
Happy, bless his little soul backed into a corner, remaining unseen and unheard of for the entire fight.
Only now, after the fight (again, read massacre) did he come out to meet his partner.
Just as he was about to offer his contribution, a snarky comment at Natsu's bad cooking habits, the entire Arena turned white.
A blue tab popped in front of Natsu.
You have defeated the first level of Demons
Achiements:
-Take little to no damage on a moderate-high difficulty fight (1500EXP)
-Due to your brutal methods of ending the imps, you received a title (Butcher)
-Due to beating the first level of demons on maximum difficulty you have received: Minor Demonic Heritage (Continue dealing with the demonic levels on maximum difficulty for continuation of Heritage)
Total: 11500EXP
Avabile max points: 3
Natsu grinned happily, he got to enjoy himself, and received a bunch of good things with it.
Life is good, and life is fine.
Thinking back to his choiced, investing all into strenght certainly hadn't been the best idea, but at the same time it hadn't betrayed him yet, and despite that being a possibility he figured investing a lot into a stat to be a good thing.
And so he dumped 3 more stats into strenght bringing his level to 10 and his strenght to 30. His stats now were as follows.
Level:10
VIT:19
ATT:15
END:18
STR:30
DEX:15
SPD:20
INT:14
HP:975
MP:710
PD: 50
MD: 0
DMG: 160
CP: 3 (CMN:6)
Satisfied with his strenght, he figured he could check the other rewards he received, starting with the "Butcher" thing.
It said it was a title, so logically he called out for the titles list.
Titles availabile:
- Butcher
Short description: This title greatly increases your ability to intimidate people, and unlocks the skill Killing Intent. The skill will be kept even if the title is removed. Also increases strenght when equipped by 10%
Natsu immediatly equipped his title, as the bonus to his strenght appeared on his status list
Strenght: 30 (33)
So it showed both the base value, and the value after applying the bonuses, that was neat.
As for his new skill, it confortably sat next to his Observe, at level 1.
Killing Intent lvl:1
The ability to project your intent to kill someone. It can cause mild unease to the target, to even death by heart attack if the difference in power is large enough and the skill is leveled enough.
He smiled, despite the skill being somewhat scary, it was a nice addition to his set.
And now, for the last reward, he called out to what seemed the most logical choice.
"Heritage."
Heritage:
-Unlocked:
Draconic Heritage (5+ to physical stats) - applied
Minor demonic heritage (+2 to mind stats) - applied
Only one heritage may be applied at the same time.
Natsu looked over, and realised that a full demon heritage might be better than his draconic one, but right now he'd leave it at that.
And now, with all the stats done, he looked back to Happy and contemplated going for another round.
Happy looked absolutely giddy.
"Natsu~, guess what i found out!?" the kitten yelled excited.
"What?" He was pretty confused as to the cause.
"I got EXP TOO!"
"what?!" Andddddddd shock.
Happy had, by Natsu's non-betraying sight, just opened his status window and dumped his points into Int and Spd.
And then went on to help Natsu reach...divinity.
"I have found out about the miracle, of the stat-scaling skill!"
"WHAT!?" Apparently the dragon slayer's brain had short-circuited.
"Basically, by raising Intelligence and speed, i can fly faster and for longer!" Happy pumped his fist and struck a pose at the reveal, as Natsu looked shocked for one second, before looking away seemingly uninterested.
"I would have figured that out on my own..."
"Sureeee you would."
New skill created:
Bluff:lv 1
'Are you kidding me?' Natsu thought, annoyed and surprised.
Moving on, he looked to the sky and realised something.
From the moment he started the Arena, and the present, the sun's position hadn't changed. So either a perfect day passed, or no time passed.
Which was bloody amazing.
Not bothered by the gravity of having an ability that literally bent time to it's will, which was basically non-heard of, but he didn't care, it was an awesome ability, and it helped him get stronger.
It will hear no complaints from him.
He re-called the Arena, but instead of anything happening, a blue tab popped.
Cooldown until next use: 23:58:46
He stared at the Cooldown of the arena, and realised he needed a full 24 hours to use again.
'Oh well, time to get back to the town.'
Turning towards the woods, he thought about his stats. Since he could increase them from leveling, how about increasing them by training.
'How does that even work?'
Well he might try training, and since he needed every opportunity to be completely used, he figured he would try everything at once, or at least as much as he could.
"By the way Natsu, don't you have an inventory system?"
"Actually, I don't know. Let me try.
Inventory!"
Inventory:
27 e-rank pitchforks
46 e-rank sabres
41 e-rank axes
21 e-rank clubs
He looked confused at all the weapons, and realised that these were all the weapons that the imps had that hadn't been broken.
Judging by the time, he probably had about 4 more hours until everyone woke up from their hangover and started questioning their absence, so he had enough time to train.
Taking out a pitchfork, he held it at the ready and used observe on it.
E-rank Pitchfork
This brittle pitchfork has seen much work and battle over the years, and it's quality had been gradually chipped through time.
Durability 7/80
Can be repaired.
Damage: 160 (150{dex*10}(base damage) + 10 damage{From weapon}) + % Damage (spear mastery).
Natsu blinked, at the stream of information.
Seeing as he had plenty of time, he took a stance for the spear. Standing still, with one foot planted firmly forward and one backward, with his knees bent and held his spear at the ready.
He then thrusted forward, all 33 points of strenght coming out full force, as he held his ground and pushed his spear forward.
Letting it slide back into it's original position, he then received another alert.
Spear mastery: lvl1
Passively increase damage by 4% with spear
Passively increase speed of attacks with spear by 4%
He grinned, and figured out that he had the perfect place to train with the spear, and with the rest of the weapons.
He straightened himself out of his stance, and then stated.
"The Testing Ground"
The Testing Ground is the location where you can exercise spells, tehniques, and other combat skills on dummies. Experience gain is halved compared to combat gained experience, and doubled compared to experience gained from casual training.
Do you wish to enter The Testing Ground?
Yes/No
Tapping the yes, he and Happy were dragged into the Testing Ground.
It was a large clearing, with large oak trees surrounding the place, and with plenty of dummies around.
And then, he looked up where he spotted in the air a large timer.
You have 4:59:41
After the time had passed, you will be forced to leave The Testing Ground, and the cooldown will start ticking (24hours)
Smiling, he got to work, and began pounding the dummies with his pitchfork. Gradually, he got better at it, as the pitchfork broke, he pulled another one from his inventory, and then another one, and then continued, rinse and repeat, until there were no more pitchforks, his spear mastery sitting at a confortable level 9.
He then pulled out a sabre, and switching stances accordingly, he started leveling up the Sword skill.
He finished the sabres before the timer hit 3:00:00
The sword skill was level 15.
Then, he pulled out the axes and the clubs, and brutally destroyed them through training, gaining the skills Axe weapon mastery, and Blunt weapon mastery.
These are the final skills he had gotten.
Spear Mastery: level 9
Passively increase damage and speed with which spear is wielded by 22%
Sword Mastery: level 15
Passively increase damage and speed with which sword is wielded by 34%
Axe Mastery: level 13
Passively increase damage and speed with which axe is wielded by 30%
Blunt Weapon Mastery: level 7
Passively increase damage and speed with which blunt weapons are wielded by 17%
He also got, halfway through a buff saying:
Your body has exercised heavily, stretching and morphing to help you train. Your body is ready for more training to follow, and you don't feel exhaustion.
All body stats perform for the remaining training time at 10% more.
You have gained +3 STR +3 DEX +3 SPD +5 END
So by training his body, he increased the stats, and he figured out that it was probably the same with magic, he just needed to use it.
So then, why did his vitality not increase?
It might be because vitality is made around your health, so it will only increase by taking hits, which made sense.
His response was another alert.
Due to your carefull and logical thinking, you have gained:
+5 INT
He smiled, and now he knew how to increase wisdom too!
Finally, he checked his new stats.
VIT:19
ATT:15
END:23
STR:33(36)
DEX:18
SPD:23
INT:19
With two hours left at his disposal, and wonderfull new stats, he threw himself at the dummies, wreathed in flames, and throwing his 3 spells with everything he had.
By 0:10:0 he had finished his MP and checked his stats, he was pleasently suprised to see that Happy finished his own training, flying laps around the clearing. Apparently he got both int and speed and endurance from it.
Back to him, he had gained 3 points of intelligence, which brought his total to 22, and no attunment slots.
He figured he would need to try to make a new spell to gain points in attunment, so it would have to wait.
Finishing his training, with not a weapon left to tell the tale, or a dummy standing, he saw the clock reach 0:0:0
White flooded his vision, just like the arena, and then, back to the real world.
A timer now appeared, just like the Arena one.
Neither this time did time pass, the sun was still, in the very same location as it had before.
Whistling cheerfully, he was glad to see that once he exited the training ground, his MP had been filled to full again.
Realising that it would be a long way until he reached the town, he decided to ask Happy about a contest.
"Hey Happy, how about this. Let's have a race, first one to reach the town wins."
Smiling from ear to ear, Happy accepted the challenge wordlessly, and then popped his wings out and prepared for some mad air.
A Quest has been created:
Defeat Happy in a race
If won: Gain 3 speed points, and title "The Predator"
If lost: Gain nothing and lose 2 points of SPD
With that in mind, Natsu bent his knees and, on the mental countdown that both he and Happy both knew they had together at the same time, and bolted of like madmen, as the scenary rapidly shifted around them.