He danced around a clumsy swipe of its tusks, and almost fell into the path of another monster. They were starting to grow more accustomed to his fighting style at this point, which was dangerous to say the least. He needed to finish this.
With a quick use of his stamina, he flashed forwards like a rocket, slamming his fully imbued fist into the center of the alpha’s forehead. Its skull shattered under the blow, and another one finished it off. Almost double the essence that he had gained from the lower level monsters rushed into him, and he let out a sigh of satisfaction. With the sight of their leader lying dead on the ground, the will of the other monsters broke, and they fled.
Jonathan let them go. The amount of essence that he gained was not enough to warrant chasing them down. They could live, until some predator found them. Such was life in Tartarus.
Jonathan spent the next day butchering his way across the volcanic plains. He made sure to avoid monsters beyond his ability to defeat safely. He knew that the defense of the city hinged partly on his presence, and it would be a mistake to endanger that unnecessarily. He gained less essence as a result, but at the rate he was killing, it hardly mattered.
Over the course of the day, he killed hundreds of monsters, all of a higher level than him. That killing spree netted him another five levels, which was a bit less than he had been expecting. With the rate that returns diminished in terms of fighting monsters of a similar level, it would only be harder from here. Of course, he was already fighting up a gap that would have been almost impossible for most to clear. His threshold was helping a lot in this regard, granting him much more stamina than before. He had considered the reasoning behind his new Mythical title, and had realized something. The path of a physical fighter was a lot more spread out than that of a mage. If one did not focus on all physical stats equally, to a certain extent, then it would cripple their ability to fight.
Too much Strength would cause injuries. Too much Dexterity would result in the fighter’s speed tearing them apart. Too much Resilience would result in a fighter that could take hits, but not fight back. Finally, too much Constitution would result in what was little more than a punching bag. Compared to this, a mage only had to focus on two stats. As Jonathan had a class that focused on all stats, it was hard to figure out where to place his stats sometimes. The promise of easy power always had to be tempered with caution. This was not a video game. He did not respawn when he died. After death, that was it. There was no coming back.
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He did not really count going to the Hells as dying in any case, as his body had carried on. The Hells were just as real as the rest of Telvaria. They were simply dimensionally removed. In any case, Jonathan was only at the very beginning of his journey. There was a massive world ahead of him, if he could overcome the first hurdle in his path. Killing a circle lord. That was the goal that kept him training to his utmost, kept him spilling an ocean of blood in his path to the top. He was a far cry from the man he had been on Earth, both in terms of experience and in willpower. Sure, he had been cursed with a hard life on Earth, but if his old self had been forced to go through his latest threshold, he probably would have died from the shock. No, Jonathan was reforging himself into a being capable of impossible feats of strength, one that would one day rock the very world with his might. However, before that glorious moment came grinding. A lot of it.
He kept going for another few hours, but eventually realized that he was running out of sufficiently leveled monsters to kill. Most of the beasts in this area ranged from level 150 to level 165, with a few at a higher level. That sort of level gap was enough to get him levels, but it would take a while. Even then, he was still progressing far faster than most would be able to. The thought of how long it would take to level if he had to fight monsters at his level was almost painful. It would take months or even years to clear Tier 2. Most inhabitants of this circle did not even bother with such things.
One final kill netted him another level, but that was the last one for today. It was time to check up on the city. Jonathan teleported out of Tartarus from the top of a pile of corpses, appearing in his cave. Nobody was there, which gave him some time to ponder where to spend his free stat points. WIth his current imbalance, and the upcoming danger, he was not foolish enough to hoard them. He had 28 stat points ready to allocate, which was enough to grant him a bit over forty if he allocated them in batches.
With a quick effort of will, he sent nine sets of three points into Dexterity, netting him forty five points. The final point was saved for later. Jonathan could immediately feel his body stabilizing as it started to balance out his Strength with his ability to control it. However, he would not be fully balanced until he managed to cross his second threshold in Dexterity. For now, this would have to do.
Jonathan strode down into the city, wanting to pay a visit to the Universal Trading Hub. He had a plethora of materials in his storage device after all, and he was eager to see what they would sell for. There were parts from many different beasts, all of which were Tier 2 in power. He would be able to get a tidy sum for those.