The chest glittered under moonlight as Lucas approached him. Softly touching its lid was enough to get it open, and Lucas dove right in. He emptied the chest, casting an investigative look on them while taking them out. First one was a majestic looking sniper rifle, about 1,5 meters in length and yet it felt like featherweight when Lucas handled him. It was metallic silver, but the best part to it, at least to Lucas was weapon’s double barreled end, which looked massive. Chuckling while imagining a caliber that went into it and massive damage they will cause when fired, he measured the next item, gold looking bracers. To his surprise, they weighted a lot when he handled them. Intrigued he rasped his knuckles on them. They responded with a loud gong that echoed in the night. Continuing with his inspection, he looked at the hood made from type of blood-red cloth. It was incredibly soft to touch, and came with holes tailored out to let ears trough them. There was also a slip at the back, stretching wide to accommodate Lucas’s finger as they slid into it. Next item on the menu were a pair of tactical military boots, black as night. They looked sturdy and came with a reinforced front, Lucas judged as he touched and squeezed every part of them. “I have to pester Michael to tell them what boost they give” Lucas thought, guessing the gear was for the only trooper in their squad. As far as he knew, System never spawned items that didn’t match class and style recipient was rocking.

A touch on his shoulder pulled him from his thoughts and he turned to see Hannah smiling at him “Done ogling our loot?” she asked him without a hint of malice.

“Not quite, still trying to see if I can confiscate something from you guys.” Lucas responded back jokingly.

“You can try, pretty boy” Hannah shot back, smile still wide.

Turning his attention back to the loot, he inspected last item, a pair of leather gloves with some kind of plating on the fingers. Something in them called to Lucas and he took them activating his “Eye for details”.

Ceramic – laced gorilla gloves (Epic quality item)

Pair of gloves made from genetically mutated skin of Earth gorilla, primates from a planet in a newly induced multiverse. Mutations came with experiments in long – forgotten nature magic and mutagens, which in turn the skin not just resistant to damage, but with minor regenerative properties and an ability to conduct mana. Reinforced with Barant’hor ceramic, famous for its focusing mana, it grants users a great amount of fine mana control, reducing the requirements for skills that use it. Part of the Earth gorilla set.

+3 Agility

+2 Constitution

Self – repair

Ability: Fine mana control: Reduce the required mana for skills for 10 for every Intelligence point.

Lucas made a frown after reading the item description. On the one hand, the stats were definitely for him and their capability to Self – Repair made them very powerful and valuable. On the other hand, ability was perplexing. Lucas didn’t have much in the way of mana skills, and even then, “Infuse weapon” was a self – taught skill which didn’t get utilized very much do its horrible efficiency.

“Besides, I’m still not sure what it’s exactly does” he murmured to himself. When he tested it, coating his rapier in light – blue mana, things didn’t seem to die faster, at least noticeably. And he only had mana for two uses before he used his mana pool.

“And empty mana pool means massive headache” he grimly thought. He shuddered as he remembered the pain he went during testing. “Not keen on repeating that”. Still, that didn’t help him in evaluating gloves. He could develop more mana skill. Hell, he could see if he can take one now, seeing as his leveling to level 25 brought him a skill point.

“I have to dig deeper for this one” he thought to himself and then quickly muttered “Status”

Name: Lucas (surname N/A)

Class: Duelist level 26 (Skill points available:1)

Attributes:

Strength: 27

Agility: 37

Constitution: 21

Intelligence: 26

Willpower: 23

Perception: 35

Charisma: 30

Luck: 30

Health: 567

Stamina: 1776

Mana: 598

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Skills:

Eye for details

Duelist Grace

Infuse weapon

Lunge

Dodge

Pierce

Battle dance

Death of thousand cuts

Stinging cut

Equipment

Curated leather chest

Curated leather pants

Curated leather bracers

Curated leather gloves

Curated leather greaves

High – quality steel rapier

Quests

Help the Camp Hearth

Titles

Monster Slayer

Colossus Muncher

Lucas went wide – eyes, stunned at his immediate growth. All of his stats went up significantly. Although he expected his Agility to jump massively, due to his level up, this much growth certainly wasn’t. He quickly deduced that they must come from the titles so he brought them up.

Monster Slayer

You proved yourself a brave soul, scouring the wilds looking for terror haunting civilized places. +2 to all stats

“Short and sweet description, just the way I like it” he chuckled.

Colossus Muncher

You took monstrosity at least twice as big as you, and you done it with style, riding it all the way to the ground. You certainly showed that “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” +5 to all stats except Charisma, bonus is doubled when fighting creatures at least twice your size.

“Wow” was all Lucas managed to breathe out. This Title was god tier in his eye, and his stat growth sure did back that. Remembering what he wanted to do, he studied his mana and stats related to it.

“Even if I manage to get a mana skill that is useful, reducing it a fair amount, I still won’t be able to use it often” he mentally stated “Not necessarily bad if I get an absolute nuke” he continued. “Not that it happened so far, it’s always more bleeds and damage over time” he concluded with a sigh. To be completely honest, he did love it. Showing off his swordsmanship, outmaneuvering his enemies and striking fast and hard was his calling card. And yet, he could find allure in one big skill, the one skill to rule them all, some might say. A skill that will completely devastate his bloodied and battered enemy while they still look on for him on a spot he left long ago

Not content to let his imagination run wild, Lucas brought his class submenu to his mind.

Duelist level 26

Duelists are masters of battle as an art form. They maneuver around their enemies, striking them when they least expect it and then moving on, all the while keeping their grace. They look down on the shows of brute force, deeming them beneath themselves and opt instead to use a lot of small cuts, wearing enemy with bleeding and Agility. In close combat, they flash their light sword skills with a plethora of thrusts, parries and ripostes, each flashier than the next, always keeping enemy guessing their next move.

On level up: +3 to Agility, +1 to Strength, +1 to Perception. One free point

Available skill points: 1

Would you like to spend your skill point now?

Y|N

Rereading his class description made him angry, as it does every time. “Where the fuck are all those parries and ripostes” he angrily questioned the System. Predictably, it didn’t respond. He narrowed his eyes even more, but after a few seconds he relented, and proceeded to his new skill choosing.

“Recalculating…”

“Recalculation completed”

“You can now browse your available skills”

A list of untold of items appeared before his eyes, most of them grayed out with a N/A attached to them, and he quickly tailored it to show him only skills that were unlocked or close to unlocking. Browsing them, he found only one he could unlock right now with any worth to him.

Strike a pose (Uncommon)

Any duelist worth his salt knows that signature pose is a key element in any battle. By flashing it, you strike fear and anger into your opponents, showing them that you are a top dog in any given fight. This skill allows you to Taunt your opponent for 0,5 second per your Charisma point, making you it primary target

Cost: 50 stamina, 50 mana

Lucas could see value in it. Utilizing it with “Lunge” and “Dodge” he could reposition both himself and his enemy for a better angle on hit. Even his “Pierce” could do wonder with added momentum, although that would need careful maneuvering and a lot of skill.

“A skill is something I certainly don’t lack” he puffed at the System. Once again, it didn’t respond.

However, his mounting frustration didn’t die down, seeing as yet again there was no parry or riposte related skills. Lucas knew he needed skill points to unlock a skill. He even knew that your experience, style of fight and lifestyle reduce or increase a number of skill points required to unlock a skill. “Strike a pose” was a conscious effort on his part to bring down to one skill point to unlock, finding it on the list at the price of 25 skill points during his last skill selection. He proceeded to strike any pose during every fight since, a source of constant amusement to his party members.

“And fuck me, but sliding from a giant gorilla head as he was falling down dead certainly helped" he mused to himself. But he did also parried a lot, and yet, even the most basic “Parry” sat with a N/A to its name.

While analyzing all this, Lucas spotted Michael waiving at him. He exited all menus and faced his friend.

“We set up camp while you were daydreaming” Michael smiled at him. “John insists we skin and loot the gorilla, so I guess we are camping here for tomorrow”. That certainly didn’t sit right with him, as far as Lucas could judge by his body language.

“Aye, aye, big boss man” Lucas said and made way to campfire he saw behind Michael.

“Lucas” he heard Michael call him

“Good job” he said to him when he turned

“I know” he said to him with a grin.

Michael just rolled his eyes as they arrived at the camp. They tried to have some small talk, but exhaustion overtook all of them and they quickly fell asleep.