Not only was the apple a tasty snack, but it was more filling than its size would suggest. The fruit was more solid in a way that was hard to explain. Luke would have to keep his eyes out for other consumable loot.

For just a brief moment, Luke considered going back to the corpse of the grackslau. He was curious to see what it had dropped. However, Luke decided that he had done enough stupid shit for one day. Despite his propensity to get himself in trouble, he wasn’t beyond redemption.

Almost an hour passed before Luke motivated himself to get back up again. He wasn’t content to let himself fall behind. Much like when his dad died, a fire had been lit within him.

This new world was his chance

If he wanted to keep up with the [Forerunners] of humanity, then he needed to get serious. The familiar drive to improve himself was being amplified by the system.

Luke embraced the feeling.

Having a poke around the forge, Luke started work on one of his short-term goals. He wanted to quantify his attributes, to get a feel for what the numbers actually meant. Using a pile of shiny red ingots and a wooden bench, he constructed a crude bench press.

Without knowing how much the ingots weighed it was impossible to be precise, but Luke judged an ingot was about twenty pounds, give or take a little. Based on this, Luke could now bench about six-hundred pounds, twice his previous best. It gave him a rough idea of what each point in strength actually did.

Luke guessed each point in an attribute gave him a ten percent boost to his base attribute. To confirm this he put his latest level up into [Strength].

The results initially confused him.

Instead of a small ten percent boost, Luke could suddenly lift about nine-hundred pounds. When he tried again a few minutes later it was more like what he had expected.

He thought back to the burst of speed he had experienced when first placing a point in [Agility]. It could be worth it to hold on to points instead of spending them immediately. A large boost in the middle of a fight was potentially worth delaying things, or even spending his points haphazardly.

Something to consider, but I really need to think long term. What if all the good classes have specific requirements? Luke thought.

Another thing Luke needed to mull over was the notification he received when facing down the ghoul captain; He had ‘cultivated’ a point in [Will].

Luke didn’t know exactly what he had done, but he remembered the sensation clearly. He vividly recalled pulling in the energy from the air; an energy he guessed was the aether Charon briefly mentioned.

After stretching out his arms, Luke looked at his gains.

Luke Evans: Level 6 Human

Attributes

Will: 18

Empathy: 11

Wisdom: 12

Intellect: 13

Agility: 13

Strength: 18

Endurance: 16

Recovery: 14

Concepts (Maximum Reached for Mortal Tier):

Forerunner (Bronze, 22%): +2 all attributes. +10% experience gained.

Murderhobo (Gold, 90%): +5 Will, +3 Strength, -1 Empathy. +40% loot.

Warhammer (Silver, 14%): +3 Strength, augments hammers.

Undeath (Copper, 29%): +1 Endurance, 15% necrotic resistance

Bulwark (Copper 2%): +2 Endurance

There were a few changes worth reflecting on. Luke noted that his [Murderhobo] domain had increased for the first time since getting it, perhaps because of the loot he had gained. Half the concept was about murder, and the other half was about loot, so it made sense for looting stuff to increase his affinity.

[Undeath] had also ticked up, though not as much as he had feared. Removing the concept was still a priority, but he had time.

Luke wasn’t an undead monster yet.

Having said that, he was a bit concerned about the more subtle changes the concepts were causing. Even if he felt more relaxed than he had in weeks, he was pretty sure that wasn’t normal. It was something he was going to have to monitor, but ultimately not something he was in a position to do much about.

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Due to the sum of his concepts and levels, Luke’s [Strength] sat at eighteen. This was ahead of his other attributes, but not good enough if he was going to fight his way out from the dungeon. If Luke could cultivate [Will], he didn’t see any reason he couldn’t do the same for [Strength].

Turning his mind to cultivating Luke sat on the floor in front of the furnace.

He sat there for a while, trying to recapture the feeling he had during the fight, but was unable to do so. Just sitting there meditating wasn’t enough. Twice, Luke felt the surrounding air condense and saw a few strands of aether form. The effort drained him mentally, but the strands just dissipated back into nothing after a few seconds.

On a hunch, Luke started moving around the forge. His makeshift bench press was a start, but there were plenty of machines and half-finished items lying around he could make use of. Once he had a few different areas set up Luke threw himself into both the strangest, and one of the most intense workouts of his life.

Luke never skipped cardio, so he warmed himself back up again with a short jog through the streets, with some sprints mixed in. He was initially worried about attracting attention, but was soon satisfied there were no undead nearby.

It was time to let loose.

Metal clanged and muscles groaned as Luke lifted ingots, pushed against heavy machines and swung his hammer against the anvils. He found a pile of forged metal chains and wrapped them around himself. The weight of the chains dragged him down as he ran around the forge, did pushups and climbed up and down the stairs.

Working out became a struggle when Luke ran out of bottled river water, but he finally worked out how to get the city’s plumbing working when he experimented with the quenching tub near the furnace. He found that just like the blue street lamps, all he had to do was impress it with his will. With enough focus, Luke could keep the water flowing and could fill the large stone vessel with ice-cold water.

He splashed his face, drank his fill and got back to work.

Just as Luke was hitting the point of exhaustion it happened. He was dragging an anvil across the floor with his chains when white strands coalesced. The strands weaved around the chains towards his body, engulfing his skin in a white glow. The aether flowed into his body, and he could feel his muscles becoming more substantial. It wasn’t just that they grew; it was more that they grew more solid, and more real.

[+1 Strength Cultivated]

That was it, he had done it. Much like when allocating a point from the system there was an initial burst of power, which would gradually taper off.

Feeling pumped from the intense workout, Luke pondered his next steps as he stretched his muscles. The forge seemed a good place to set up as his base of operations. It was a spacious building, with a ready supply of water, and the undead seemed to avoid it. From here, he could plan his next move.

Get stronger.

Escape the dungeon.

Find Nate.

Those were Luke’s primary goals. He paused for a second. Hitting the weights often gave Luke a sense of clarity, and he was finding cultivation to have a similar effect.

Despite how things ended, he mentally marked down checking up on Chrissy as a secondary objective. She had been his best friend for half a decade and seen him through some dark times.

Before heading out to face the city again, Luke wanted to get strong enough that a chance encounter wouldn’t kill him. In an ideal world, he would pump iron and cultivate until he could one-shot any monster in the dungeon.

Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple.

Luke’s body needed fuel to sustain his growth. His work out session had already left him feeling hungry, and he didn’t see any conveniently placed convenience stores. That meant he was going to hunt for his food the old-fashioned way; by killing monsters.

Hopefully, some of the undead would drop edible loot, and he could sell anything he didn’t need. If he had to, Luke could try eating some of the less disgusting undead in the city. The shamblers were basically giant walking mushrooms.

Before heading out Luke wanted to see if he could use some of the junk lying around in the forge to make his shield more usable. The handle was better than nothing, but was awkward to hold.

Whilst working out Luke had moved a lot of stuff around and had piled the more useful looking items up by the stairs. Amongst them was a sheet of sturdy, yet flexible material. It looked like crocodile leather, though it was more grey than green.

The scales were smooth to the touch. He didn’t know what kind of animal it came from, but hoped it would prove suitable. The pile had a few mismatching nails from around the workshop, so he grabbed a few of those to join the leather to the wood.

Luke picked up a nail and positioned it at one corner of the leather strip. The once humble claw hammer had grown again following the death of the grackslau, and it was a little large for precise work.

Considering this, Luke sent it to his storage space and went to pick up one of the stone hammers lying around. When the claw hammer disappeared into his storage, he felt the now familiar scratch of a notification in the back of his head.

[Fenn - Unique (Growth) - The Warhammer of the Murderhobo.]

Oh shit, Luke thought, as questions swirled in his mind. Fenn was the guy he had killed, and he vaguely remembered the system mentioning loot at the time. He had been a little preoccupied so hadn’t given it much thought.

Luke worried that he had somehow trapped the man’s soul.

A couple of days ago the thought would have been ludicrous, but now he wasn’t so sure. The apparent rarity of the weapon soothed his guilt more than he liked to admit.

Sighing, Luke drove the next nail into the wood. One after another, nails sank into the wood until the strange leather was firmly attached to the shield. Stepping back to admire his handiwork, Luke felt that given the circumstances he had done a reasonable job.

He picked it up.

The leather strap made it considerably easier to control the shield, and Luke took a defensive stance against a wave of imaginary foes.

“That’s the worst shield I ever saw.”

Luke froze. He barely registered the words themselves, only that the voice came from directly behind him. As he jumped back, he started to form Fenn in his hand. It would take several precious seconds, so he hid behind his shield as the white mist coalesced.

Just as the war hammer appeared, Luke finally registered the words themselves. He peeked out from behind the shield.

Standing in front of him was the form of a dwarf, his form shimmering with an ethereal orange glow that cast a soft light like a candle on the cluttered surroundings of the forge.

The dwarf’s beard was literally on fire, with flames forming an impressive mane that seemed to dance with every movement. His eyes twinkled with amusement, apparently entirely unfazed by Luke’s narrowly averted assault.

Luke could feel the power of his domain as a tangible presence.

[Level 30 Dwarf - An aspect of Fire that embodies the path of the Eldrinsvär Forgemaster. Core Domains: Fire.]

[Quest received: Kill the Spirit of the Forge. Reward - Golden Ticket + Choice of Rare Item, 10’000 credits, 1 Free Attribute Point.]

Out of the forge and into the fire…