Author's note: i did something i should've been doing for a long time: inventory and skill management for Zaran... it's something i kept putting off since it seemed like it'd be a big bore but... it's done now so all i have to do is keep it updated...
Edit: Some of the other skills won't be explained as much, since they won't need much explaining. I kept the training part short as there's not too much to be explained there and while some people might have fun reading it, I myself want to continue on. I feel like I've been doing a lot of writing without the story progressing much at all, which is why I cut it short.
As always I hope you enjoy the chapter.
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Kirin chased after the stick Zaran had thrown happily barking and wagging her tail. While Kirin was chasing the stick Zaran was chatting with Cindarrah. When Kirin came running back again she gave the stick back to Zaran who threw it away again and Kirin happily chased it again. This continued for some time before Zaran decided to stop and have a hearty meal. He had checked his storage ring and he still had enough food to last him another week.
After eating his fill Zaran looked at Kirin and Cindarrah. He knew both of them didn't have much fun with him the past few days but he had already explained to them that what he was doing now was incredibly important and once it was done now he wouldn't have to ignore them for such a large part of the day for the foreseeable future. This settled both of them down and they were okay with him training. He had been keeping care of them and playing with them throughout the days he had already been training, causing his Hellbeast mastery to raise to level 4 in the process.
"Hey Kirin, Cindarrah, it's just going to be a few more days okay? After that we can go and hunt some strong monsters together!" Zaran said while stroking the both of them. Kirin gave a small nod to Zaran indicating that she was okay with it while Cindarrah just let out an unsatisfied "meh". Cindarrah just wanted Zaran's attention as much as possible and after not getting enough of it for a while she was getting grumpy.
"Cindarrah please... Daddy needs to be strong! Soon more and stronger people like that bearman earlier will be fighting with me! Do you want me to lose against them?" Zaran asked Cindarrah.
"No but... can't we just do something else for a few days instead of you training?"
"Cindarrah it's just a few more days and then we'll be travelling together all the time!"
"Well... okay then. Just a few more days though!"
Zaran chuckled as he stroked Cindarrah one more time before starting a very intense work out. Running laps, climbing the mountain, push-ups, situps and various other exercises where all done to train his stamina, agility, flexibility and strength. When he was drained he would fill every cell of his body with ki, replenishing his strength in the span of a few minutes instead of waiting hours. At the same time his cells grew much faster this way.
After carefully considering all the body strengthening techniques, this one would be the most worthwhile for Zaran. Others would require him to train for a long period of time to achieve some good results. While training in those would increase his strength in the long run, he would be far too under leveled by that time. Thus this really basic technique was the best option for him. It would allow him to quickly gain much needed stats, without having to spend days upon days before the first results would start to show.
Still, half a day into the training regime, the results from this type of training where starting to slow down. Especially in the strength department the rewards were visibly growing smaller. He had nearly reached a hundred strength but he still wanted to squeeze out a little more before finally finishing his training. Zaran equipped the greatsword that he had stowed away and continued the training regime. Due to the increased weight on his back, the exercises got a lot harder for him and his stats started to increase by leaps and bounds again.
Half a day later even that didn't help anymore but Zaran had already reached the stats he wanted. By now he had two thirds of the stats the highest level player should have, who had barely reached level 40 after a week. Zaran had logged out now and then between his training over the past few days to eat, to use the bathroom, to take a quick nap and had used the forums and leaderboards in between. This kept him updated on the custom made S-tier skills along with knowing the names of the top 100 leveled players.
While the initial ten levels were easy to attain, after passing every 10 levels the experience needed to achieve the next level increased by leaps and bounds. While getting level 1-10 would need about 20K experience total, leveling up to 11 would take a staggering amount of 20k experience. From Sylphie he had heard that the difference between a level 10 and level 11 monster was likewise enormous and without upgraded gear and leveling your skills it was nearly impossible to kill them.
Thus Zaran knew by about how much his stats should increase to solve that problem. Now that his primary stats were somewhat okay for the time being Zaran now had to work on his vitality. With a pitiable 160 health he would not be able to achieve much. Even against level 4 monsters a mere two hits would cost him his life.
He headed over to the waterfall. The waterfall hit a small rock in the surface and was continuously shaving away at it. Currently it still allowed a person to stand under it but in due time it would be completely submerged. Zaran jumped under it and tried to not let himself be washed away instantly. Initially he could sustain the pressure due to his increased strength but due to the enormous pressure his strength soon faded and as a result his health started to drain rapidly. When he hit 10 health Zaran let himself be washed away by the waterfall.
After waiting for a few minutes he had recovered his strength with his ki and his health had naturally recovered due to being out of combat for a long time. He received notification that his health had indeed increased from doing this training and Zaran headed to the waterfall again with a smile on his face. While his strength was sadly enough not increasing from under the waterfall, everytime Zaran stood under it he could endure for a longer time and his health would raise more and more. Only after his health had tripled did the rewards finally stop coming.
Another half day had passed in the meantime and Zaran had just eaten when he checked his stats. He noticed that his vitality climbed far slower than his other stats, not allowing him to get a massive amount of health in a short amount of time. He had tried adding stat points to it before but the game simply would not allow him to do so. Zaran wasn't all too happy about this since it meant that he had to continuously find new ways to raise his vitality if he wanted to keep on par with the other players. In contrast to other players he only gained 1 vitality every 2 levels while other players gained 1 vitality per level. Along with his decrease in stat points this made it so that he had to train very frequently. He didn't really mind that part but he was still a little concerned about this fact. If people found better ways to level than him he would rapidly fall behind. Naturally because this was the stage for the battlefield of the gods he couldn't allow himself to fall behind too far.
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Zaran kept going over his stats and saw that his intelligence and wisdom had raised a bit by reading the mana and ki book as well as due to making the custom skills. This made him quite pleased as he would undoubtedly need both intelligence and wisdom in the future. He had heard from Sylphie that making skills or gaining skill all relied on wisdom and intelligence. If both stats were low there was no way that one would be able to learn skills quickly. Nor would one be able to improve them quickly unless one was extremely talented.
A last thing that he noticed from his stats was that his willpower had been raised dramatically. He had seen the +1's for it continuously but hadn't really paid mind to it. It had been raised by a whopping 45 points over the past nine days.
Character infoRaceZunoProfessionN/ASub-profession 1Hellbeast masterSub-profession 2N/ALevel6Unspent stat points0StatsHealth500/500Mana300/300Ki300/300Racial ??????/??Strength145Flexibility87Agility112Stamina103Vitality25Focus73Intelligence23Wisdom23Perception10Luck5Charm2Willpower50ReputationHonour5Fame50God's merit1
Now that that is done, we should start on creating some more skills. Let's start with the simple 'gravity' spell first.
Zaran gathered a bunch of leaves and placed them in a large circle around him, then he started to command the nearby earth and wind elements to pull everything in a close area around him to him. A small shockwave occurred as everything within half a meter was neatly pulled to him. Zaran was happy that his first try succeeded and continued to increase the range time upon time. When he reached a range of 5 meters around him, he could no longer increase the range. While he could no longer increase the range the skill creation bar that had appeared was stuck at 90%. Zaran tried a few more times but to no avail.
Pondering about the problem for a while Zaran took some middle sized rocks from the nearby area and started casting the skill. As he had expected the rocks did not move at all. This caused the skill to be inefective, which in turn caused the skill to not be recognized by the system. Zaran now gathered the elements of a larger are first and then used the skill again. This time the rocks were pulled straight to him before stopping at his feet. A message box appeared at the same time as the skill worked on the large borders.
Congratulations on creating a B-rank skill. Please name it.
Zaran chose to share his name this time. He wanted to create more pressure on his opponents by the next stream of skills that would pour out from him. Or at least hopefully would pour out from him in the next day or so. He had decided that only if he thought the skill should be kept hidden from others would he not share his name.
Gravity (beginner)Level1Experience10%Range5 metersMana consumption25DescriptionYou command the nearby earth and wind elements to rapidly pull surrounding objects to you.
When the level of this skill increases larger objects can be pulled to you. Current limit: 10 KG
Seeing the weight limit Zaran kept picking up larger boulders until the skill reached level 10 which had increased his limit to 100 kg. Unless he could lift heavy objects the skill would be useless to him. He wanted to use this skill in combination with other skills while meeting his enemies so being able to rapidly pull enemies closer was a must.
Next up Zaran started to create a skill that would allow him to stomp his feet on the ground, causing incredibly durable earthen spikes to shoot up from the ground. Again this was a rather simple skill but at the same time it was extremely effective. For this skill only a few minutes were needed before he got the message box and as he suspected the rating the skill got was extremely low.
Congratulations on creating a C-rank skill. Please name it.
Earth lance (beginner)Level1Experience1%Piercing damage15-15Mana consumption15DescriptionYou create sharp earthen spikes in a small cone near your feet.
The damage increases with each consecutive level.
Having depleted all his mana while creating earth lance Zaran took a small break and played with Kirin and Cindarrah. Both were very elated as they saw Zaran creating skills and Cindarrah continuously shouted "show me again! show me again!" whenever he had casted gravity or earth lance. For a few days old Hellweaver these low ranking skills looked really flashy and pretty. However Zaran didn't care about skills being flashy or pretty they needed to be effective. He had decided that he would initially create a small set of skills which he would gradually expand as he moved on.
For now he needed a good base set of skills that would allow him to be ready for any situation. While the initial set he decided on wasn't the best, most of the magic skills, safe the area of effect one, were rather simple and didn't require a lot of attention to execute properly. This would allow him to focus on fighting with his greatsword or longsword and still be able to use one of his magic skills if the situation required him to do so.
Having rested for a while Zaran cracked his knuckles and stretched himself a little. He didn't have much time to rest as he really needed to keep the stream of skill creation announcements going. Even something as low as a custom D-rank skill got announced by the system. Zaran had somewhat kept track of it and about a hundred skills had been created, with no user having created more than a single one. If he wanted to intimidate his opponents and scare them shitless he would need to create at least 10 skills in the next hours. His initial set of skills he had decided on contained 12 skills so he was sure he would succeed if the system worked along with him.
"Let's continue now, shall we?" Zaran muttered as a wicked smile appeared on his face. Imagining the faces of his opponents while they saw the stream of custom skills created by him, an evil laugh escaped his mouth.