Arthur looked up from the system notification to see Alyssia staring expectantly at him. “So, did it work? Is your soul fixed?” She asked the questions so fast his brain struggled to decode the sound waves that reached him. With her aura-reading skills, Arthur was certain she already knew the answer to that question but it never hurt to confirm things. Arthur grinned and nodded his head. “Yep, my soul healed completely. Better than ever, honestly. The system’s not telling me much, but I’m pretty sure my soul is more resilient than before.”
Alyssia sighed in relief when she heard that. There'd always been the risk that the dragon core wouldn’t have worked as they’d expected it to. Working with such high-quality materials with their lack of expertise meant they’d been relying far more on chance than she’d normally be comfortable with.
The vague prophecies of a seer tended to be false more often than not and Alyssia was glad that Ayesha’s underling didn’t seem to follow that stereotype. I would’ve been honour-bound to get vengeance had Arthur died, she thought morbidly, chuckling mirthlessly. Arthur glanced at her in confusion before turning back to his system. Who am I kidding? There's no way I would have survived his soul explosion.
Helping Arthur had always been a risky venture. As powerful as he’d been, Alyssia had wondered if it was worth the trouble of getting involved with him. She’d seen it in her homeworld, in people hailed as prodigies, even in herself to a certain extent. People like Arthur attracted trouble like a magnet. It was like they had more weight in reality and so naturally, situations both good and bad gravitated towards them. They always managed to find themselves at the centre of pivotal moments in history. If she hadn’t owed him so much for her brother's recovery, she wouldn’t have touched him with a ten-foot pole. Still, she was glad things had worked out at the end of the day.
“Okay Arthur, I’m going to leave you to your class selection. It’s a personal choice and you know what you need far better than I do. My enhancement potions are going to run out in…” She looked up at the sun’s position in the sky instead of her system clock for some reason. “Twelve or thirteen minutes. The backlash is gonna knock me out for a while. I expect to see you a changed man when I wake up.”
She barely waited for his reply before pulling a pillow out of her storage bag which she promptly fell asleep on. It had taken her all of three seconds. Shaking his head in bemusement, Arthur turned back to the system notification awaiting his decision.
Please select an attribute to enhance to its Draconic Variant.
It wasn't even a question, really, the easiest decision he'd made to date.
Vitality
Arthur mentally chose the stat he’d poured the most effort into. Selecting anything else at this point would be the height of folly. He’d chosen his specialisation already. There was no point running away from it now. Nothing happened for a moment, but then it hit him.
The changes to his body this time were far more potent than the initial surge of power caused by the dragon’s core. He was changed on a physical level, the genetic makeup of his very being rewritten and enhanced with ether-laden code. Had Arthur been awake for the process, it would have been the single most painful thing he’d ever experienced. Mercifully, he’d been knocked unconscious the moment he’d made his selection.
The process took half an hour, and it was another ten minutes before his still form stirred. Groaning, Arthur got up from where he’d ended up sprawled on the ground and took a seat against the massive tree of life. Contrary to how exhausted he felt mentally, his body felt amazing, practically bursting with energy. He could almost hear the steady thrum of power that flowed through his flesh, his heart a nuclear reactor in his chest that pumped potent blood through his veins.
He clenched his hands, marvelling at the strength he could feel in his muscles. He’d selected vitality as the stat he wanted to enhance, and yet it felt like all his physical attributes had undergone a qualitative change. Unable to hold himself back any longer, Arthur called up his system logs.
You have selected Vitality as your chosen stat for Draconic enhancement…
Scanning…
Human Vitality has been deemed incomplete…
Identifying issue…
problem identified…
Dragons do not possess a constitution Stat. Their vitality encompasses the role played by both constitution and human vitality… Resolving issue… Constitution has been subsumed by vitality…
Superior vitality has been created...
Superior Vitality has evolved to become Draconic vitality…
Draconic vitality has been set to 1000 points…
Titles applying to vitality now apply to Draconic vitality (Effectiveness titles only apply to thee health aspect of Draconic Vitality, not the constitution part)…
Titles formerly applied to constitution cannot be applied to vitality…Constitution boosting aspect from Titles have been merged to produce a new title; Draconic Boost
Draconic Boost (Boosts [unselected] attribute by 20%) Please select a physical stat to apply the title to… Draconic vitality cannot be selected
Arthur quickly read through the notifications and frowned. He’d lost constitution. He’d had a 40% boost on it from several titles and it had now been reduced to half that value. The main problem though, was that he wouldn’t be able to assign the title to vitality even though Constitution had been absorbed by it. Well, I guess it’s called Draconic vitality now. On the bright side of things, it meant that every point he assigned to Draconic vitality was now the equivalent of two invested stats, both his former vitality and constitution. All that was left was to decide where to assign Draconic Boost and figure out what his latest stat entailed.
Draconic Vitality- A variation of the stat possessed by mighty dragons, this version has been adjusted to the limitations of the human form. Each point is equivalent to 30 Health and 1.5 [human] constitution. 10% of Draconic vitality is applied to skills effects that scale off intelligence, such as domain size [note: this is not an increase applied directly to intelligence] Health can be used as a substitute for ether in a 4:1 ratio. Enhanced by tier 4 title- Source of vitality and Evolutionary path. The ratio has been adjusted to 3:1. You can now regenerate minor damage to the soul at an extremely slow rate.
Arthur whistled as he read through the stat's description. It just got better and better, so much more than he’d ever expected. Calling up his titles, he saw that the stat was indeed modified by numerous titles that had once been boosting the unevolved stat. If anything, his source of vitality had gotten stronger. Firstly in the form of its health to ether adjustment being adjusted from 5:1 to 3:1 and secondly, that the distance for appointed individuals to gain extra regen had increased from one km to ten. The number of friendlies he could appoint had also increased from (one/hundred vitality) to ([one/hundred vitality] x1.5) it was a significant increase in the title's capabilities even if they only enhanced the title's secondary benefits. It was more than welcome nonetheless. Unable to help himself any longer, Arthur called forward his status. The numbers that greeted him were frankly… insane. There was no other word to describe it. He probably had more health than the ten strongest people on earth combined.
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Arthur Ward
Level: 94--> 99 (MAX)
Evolved: Rank: D Prodigious title bearer III (increase title effects by 30%)+ Draconic rebirth ( increases all attributes by 10%. Applied after all titles, evolutionary and class effects are calculated )
Unallocated stats: 126 (19 from JoAT enhanced further by 20% for the previous 94 levels, 51 from current 5 level ups & 56 from enlarged soul increasing by a further 20% for the previous 94 levels)
Strength- 173(125x1.26x1.1)
Draconic vitality- 1,672 (1000x1.52x1.1)
Endurance- 653 (525x1.13x1.1)
Agility- 525 (143+334[boots] x1.1)
Intelligence- 653 (525x1.13x1.1)
Willpower- 622 (500x1.13x1.1)
Charisma- 132 (120x1.1)
Perception- 129 (117x1.1)
Health- 215,186 (24,316/hour) [30x1.65x1672x2.6] [21,518.6x1.13]
Ether- 6530/6530 (653/hour)
Stamina- 6530/6530 (6530/minute)
The numbers on his status page were ludicrous, completely outrageous, out of this world even. There were no other words to describe it. Gaining the Draconic vitality stat and enhancing it by a further 65% courtesy of his source title took an already powerful build into the realms of absurdity. He had over 200,000 health! An ordinary person would require 21,500 vitality to match him in that department. Sure, that was without considering the powerful titles and bonuses they’d no doubt get for boosting the stat so high, but still, the point stood. He had more health than he knew what to do with.
A three-to-one conversion rate also meant that he technically had around 70,000 extra ether to work with. Enough energy Arthur doubted he’d ever be at risk of running out in a fight again. It was so absurd he almost missed the new Paragon title he'd just gained for agility.
A class selection was upon him; he’d been instinctively pushing the notification away for a while now, but it was getting harder and harder for him to ignore. Reaching the level 99 milestone quite literally forced someone to pick a class, something he could feel quite strongly right about now. It explained why people couldn't just lounge about at level 99 until they met the requirements for an op class.
If this isn’t enough for legendary, then it’s impossible. I refuse to believe anyone reached 200,000 health without a class before, at least as a humanoid sapient. Heck, I’m a fifth of what the Hydra was at and that’s what gives them the apocalypse suffix. Was he an apocalypse human now? He certainly felt like he could be. At this point, no one on Earth could stop him. Perhaps Kazi Alukai but he doubted even the prime could truly hurt him at this point, and that was despite the fact that his powers were literally fueled by the planet
Arthur couldn’t help but laugh. I’m the strongest human on this planet. He glanced at Alyssia’s sleeping form. Strongest sapient too. Arthur doubted her standard attacks, unenhanced by an epic potion, would be able to get through the defence of 1500 Draconic vitality. Even with the one-in-a-million potion, he doubted she could kill him as easily as she had the hydra. Hell, I can tank a tank now. More like a few dozen actually or am I being too conservative? What was next on the list? A fighter jet? A hydrogen bomb?
Arthur quickly did some maths. 5000+ points in a stat was the designated amount for someone to be classified as an S-rank attribute holder. Ignoring all the unique titles and skills those people would no doubt possess, scaling of said stats alone, they would only have 50,000 health, less than a quarter of what he currently had. It was almost scary to think about.
He still had 126 points to invest before choosing a class, and he needed to pick a physical stat to increase with Draconic Boost. Endurance was knocked out of the running almost immediately. With over 5000 stamina, he’d yet to run the risk of running out of it in a fight. Enhancing it would just be a waste. That just left strength and agility. He already had a 20% boost in strength, but with the latest increase in agility from his upgraded greaves of Achilles, it was now his lowest physical stat.
For good reason too. Arthur would pick being fast over being strong nine times out of ten. It was simply more important in a fight. At least in his personal opinion. You’d always generate more force striking with speed rather than more physical power, or whatever strength translated into when it came to physics.
Greaves of Achilles has upgraded from Rank F to Rank D
Greaves of Achilles [Soulbound Rank D]- Increases agility by 20% of the Draconic Vitality attribute.
Effect: Thrice every 24 hours, you become immune to attacks dealing up to 200,000 damage.
Secondary effect: Damage inflicted in negated attacks can be collected by the host and unleashed back onto the attacker in the host's next attack. Collected attack energy can only be held for 3 minutes before natural dissipation.
Note: The Greaves of Achilles require the usage of certain natural treasures to be upgraded beyond D rank. They shall no longer simply rank up as the Host does. (current boost +334 agility)
All in all, Arthur was extremely pleased with how the Greaves had turned out. They scaled off Draconic Vitality now that Constitution no longer existed and translated to a whopping 20% of the stat being applied for agility instead of the previous 5%. It was the equivalent of a 150% increase in the attribute from its former value and proved once again just how broken a soul-bound item could be. Speaking of soul-bound items, he needed to check what had become of his Ikea bowl. If anything was going to push it over the edge, it would’ve been an elixir made from a dragon's core.
Confirming his choice, Arthur selected agility for the Draconic boost and invested his remaining stat points into Draconic vitality.
Your title Draconic Boost is now being applied to Agility.
Draconic Vitality- 1883 (1126x1.52x1.1)
Agility- 720 (143+377[boots]x1.26x1.1)
There was no point leaving anything in the woodwork now that his class selection was upon him. His recent investments left strength to the wayside though, and he'd need to rectify that before it became a problem. He didn't want a skewed build that prevented him from bringing the true power of his stats to bear. Letting go of the mental block he’d been holding in place, he let his class selections wash over him. Seeing the notifications for what he had available, he couldn’t help but grin.
Four paths lie before you. Please select a class.
The Bloodied Warrior
Dread Chimera: Herald of the Apocalypse
The Perfect Homunculus
The Shoddy Craftsman