Congratulations! You have completed the champion quest.
Quest: Champion Ⅰ
Description: As a champion you must participate in raking battles for the first bracket and obtain victories. Each victory earns you village points, but a defeat doesn’t cause you to lose points. After ten victories you will be able to accept the following quest for the next bracket.
Quest objectives:
Obtain ten victories
Obtain ten consecutive victories
Quest Reward:
1,000 points per victory
100,000 points for ten consecutive victories
Quest Failure: Failure to obtain ten victories
Quest Failure Penalty: 1,000 points per victory
Would you like to accept the Champion Ⅱ quest? Yes or No
Congratulations! You have reached level 47.
The familiar rush of energy flowed through Zane and helped him recover. In addition to the energy from the level up Zane also felt a feeling of warmth from his bloodline. The warmth was stronger than usual and lasted longer than before. It was strange, but it didn’t cause Zane to feel any alarm.
Also, it didn’t surprise Zane when he reached the next level. He was close to the next level after challenging multiple opponents and fighting someone at the first tier gave him more than enough experience. Although Zane was confident about not being awarded experience for a kill, he still took a second look at Valin’s body.
Zane nodded to himself when he saw the steady rise and fall of Valin’s chest. Valin remained unconscious after Zane hit him with his war hammer and Zane did feel the need to make sure his opponent was okay. The next thing Zane did was sit down deactivate his skill and start going over his system messages.
The first thing Zane decided to address was the Champion Ⅱ quest. At first accepting the quest seemed like the obvious decision to make. However, Zane stopped himself from accepting when he remembered that he was about to focus on learning his first tier one skill. Since he would be entering a new bracket, Zane didn’t know if he would be forced to accept new challengers. He decided to postpone accepting the quest until after he learned his tier one skill.
Next, Zane looked at his stats and saw that all of them increased by four points after he factored in the increase in stats from leveling up. It was the first time his bloodline increased his stats by so many points and Zane was pleasantly surprised. After he looked over his stats Zane looked at the rest of his system messages about village points and increases in skill levels.
Eventually, Zane looked at a system message about the private room. The system offered him the option to claim the room as his own since he won. If he agreed he would not have to pay for the first hour of its usage and he would have complete control of who was allowed inside. Which meant that if he accepted, he could kick Valin out of the room.
A smile slowly spread across Zane’s face once the thought passed through his mind. It also made Zane think about Valin and his special ability. According to Valin, he was supposed to continue feeling pain even after the battle ended. However, Zane already stopped using his skills and he didn’t feel anything. Zane didn’t know if this was because Valin lied, the ability stopped working after Valin was knocked unconscious, or if the pain was negated by him leveling up. There were to many unknowns and Zane didn’t want to waste time thinking about it.
Instead, Zane decided to claim the room and kick Valin out. The moment Valin’s body started to disappear Zane heard multiple voices in his head.
“If I’m being honest, I was a little worried for Zane,” Whitney said. “In the beginning the battle seemed dangerous for him and his opponent’s skill seemed extremely powerful.”
“What’s there to worry about?” Jason responded. “My brother wouldn’t be defeated by that weakling. Didn’t you see how easily he beat him up? A few punches and that guy was close to death.”
“Zane definitely had the upper hand,” Frank replied. “But I think he was caught off guard by Valin for a moment.”
“Your Battle experience is severely lacking if you think my brother was in any danger during that battle. Everything that happened went according to Zane’s plan.”
“I highly doubt it, Britney said. “Although Zane treated that guy like a punching bag in the end, it was clear that he was caught with his pants down in the beginning. But maybe you can explain how almost getting stabbed in the face was part of his plan.”
When Zane heard what Britney said he couldn’t help but chuckle. He was caught off guard by the way Britney described his situation. It was a bit unexpected and comical. Zane started to imagine himself with his pants down while trying to fend off Valin’s attacks.
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“That was all a part of my brother’s clever strategy,” Jason answered. “He let Valin believe he had the upper hand by pretending to almost suffer a fatal strike. Didn’t you all see how arrogant Valin was? Instead of pressing his attack after it looked like he gained the upper hand, he decided to stop and explain his skill to Zane. When Zane begam to attack Valin, once again he pretended to be weak and allowed himself to be pushed back. When Valin tried to attack him again Zane stopped pretending and withstood Valin’s attack. Valin was shocked by Zane’s strength and dropped his guard. As for the rest, I’m sure I don’t need to describe it.”
Listening to Jason describe his fight left Zane feeling impressed and touched. He was touched by the level of confidence and faith that his brother had in his fighting capabilities. Also, he was impressed by the way Jason described the fight. Jason made it seem like everything was completely under Zane’s control, but that clearly wasn’t the case.
Valin had a lower level but was someone who reached the first tier. Therefore, it was expected for him to be stronger than Zane. Jason was completely wrong about Zane pretending to be weak. He was weak but having weaker stats didn’t mean Zane would lose the fight.
Jason was right when he talked about Valin being arrogant. It was his arrogance that gave Zane enough time to think of a way to stop the intense pain caused by Valin’s skill. If another warrior was in Zane’s position, they may not have had the same skill he did. Plus, Zane’s willpower stat was a lot higher than the average warrior.
“Hmph,” Britney mentally responded. “You definitely told a good story, but there’s no way to prove Zane planned things out the way you described it.”
“Are you still doubting my brother’s abilities?”
Seeing that the conversation was deteriorating Zane decided to mentally speak. “Hello everyone, did you enjoy watching my fight?”
“Zane!” Everyone called out.
Everyone started congratulating Zane once they heard him speak. Zane thanked everyone explained what happened after the battle ended.
“Hahaha,” Jason laughed. “I wish I could see his face when he wakes up and realizes he’s been kicked out of his own room. Actually, I think I might head downstairs and do that.”
Zane shook his head and decided to ignore Jason’s antics. “You can come down if you want to, but I plan isolate myself and train for a while. I don’t like Valin but fighting him gave me a lot of inspiration.”
“I know what you mean,” Jason replied. “Watching the two of you fight was exciting. I feel like I’ve reached the perfect mental state for my upgrade. I think I should head of to the mage training ground right away. Have fun with your training Zane.”
Everyone else also said a few kind words and Zane made sure he thanked all of them. After he said goodbye Zane activated the isolating function of his private room so nobody would be able to disturb him during his training. Once the private room was active Zane took a deep breath and allowed his mind to drift.
For the first few minutes Zane did nothing. He simply stared into space and let himself relax after fighting a short, but intense battle. Once Zane felt he spent enough time calming himself down Zane entered Meditation and started to visualize the battle he recently fought. Zane was able to calmly sit through the first few minutes of his meditation, but after a few minutes, he started to feel restless.
A thought entered his mind and told him to stand up. It was tiny thought that quickly passed through his mind at first. However, overtime, the thought became larger and stayed in his mind longer. Eventually, Zane gave into the thought, canceled his meditation and stood up.
But standing up wasn’t enough. Once Zane stood up, he felt the need to act out the movements he saw during his visualization. Zane started moving around as he tried to remember and reenact his actions from the fight, His movements were shaky at first, but they became smoother and more confident as time passed.
Eventually, Zane started punching. He punched the air as he remembered the punches, he delivered to Valin. Next, Zane started to visualize Valin’s movements and attacks. He started visualizing Valin’s movements and attacks based of his memory at first, but he quickly changed to imagining new movements and attacks. Zane visualized how Valin would react to his punches and attacks if he wasn’t caught off guard. He pictured Valin as a far more capable expert that had better combat instincts and experience. This caused Zane to move and fight even more intensely than he did with Valin.
Unknowingly, mana started to flow from Zane’s body. The mana gathered in front of him and formed an outline that was similar to Valin. If Zane was in a calm state of mind, he might have been curious about the strange event taking place in front of him. However, Zane wasn’t in a calm state of mind. He was completely focused on the imaginary opponent he created in his mind.
The opponent he imagined was powerful and Zane struggled during their fight. He was hit many times, but he didn’t feel any pain because it was all in his head. However, this changed once the figure made of mana took shape. When Zane received a hit from the figure in his mind the mana figure hit him as well and caused him to feel real pain. In fact, Zane had already stopped fighting the opponent in his mind and was actually fighting the mana figure in front of him. However, Zane didn’t realize it. He was too focused on the battle that he didn’t register the feeling of his fist and feet hitting something solid when he landed a punch or a kick.
Being hit by the mana figure didn’t wake him up either. Instead of being surprised, the pain Zane felt made him fight with greater intensity. He lost himself as he poured his sweat, blood, mana and stamina into the fight. The fight continued for a while until Zane eventually threw his final punch and collapsed onto his back.
Zane laid on his back with his arms and legs spread out. He struggled to breathe as his mind shook with pain. He had completely used his stamina, he had less than fifty percent of his health left and his mana dropped to a low level. However, despite the exhaustion and the pain Zane felt good. It had been a while since he put all of his energy and focus into a fight. Zane felt like that was the most intense fight he had since he arrived at the starting village and his bloodline agreed.
Warmth spread through Zane’s body and stayed longer than ever before. The warmth helped numb the pain that Zane felt from his own mind. When the warmth left Zane finally felt like his mind could focus on other things.
Zane recalled what he recently experienced. He smiled as he thought about how he was so focused on the fight that he didn’t even react to glowing blue figure that appeared in front of him. He had a good idea about why he was able to create the mana figure. Zane was sure that once he checked his system messages, he would see a message about an upgrade.
Not seeing a reason to wait Zane opened his system messages and started reading. The first message he read caused Zane body to go stiff. He couldn’t believe what he read so he read it again, and again, and again. After reading the message multiple times a smile spread across Zane’s face and threatened to split it in half. Zane leapt to his feet and let out a loud laugh full of excitement.
Congratulations! You have created a meditation art.