As Ark stood in the middle of the two trains, he contemplated about his life choices, about how he could do things differently. Ark had a simple philosophy, if you were strong enough, then you could do anything. The thing Ark wanted to do was save people.

In his previous life, Ark had not been able to do so, but in this current time line where he was strong enough, he would be able to do it. After all, what was the point of being strong, if you did not protect those who were weaker than you? Ark had lost contact with his friends and there was a journey he was about to embark on. He could only hope, his lost friends would be there for him.

As far as Ark could see, there was a void, something sinister that lurked behind the curtain of darkness. If you allowed it to unfold, it would come and bare its fangs at you. That was not going to be a good outcome for either Ark or the people of the subway station.

Ark was pretty sure, most people had not found a safe room. His group was the first to come into the subway station, partly because they were so close to it. This was the only reason he had not paid much attention to them. He knew that those guys could take care of themselves. Even so, Ark had decided to monitor everything those people did and it did not disappoint. They had immediately noticed the green squares and without any further hassle decided to divide the group into smaller parts, each with people who could protect themselves and others when the time came.

It was a good judgment on their part too. People were willing to kill each other to get into safe rooms. It was not a pleasant sight. Ark was pretty sure that after the second day, there would be human corpses on which some tiny monster would nibble. Speaking of which, the first horde of monsters had decided to show their face.

From the void, all Ark could see were yellow glowing eyes. They were not just one, they were hundred, maybe even thousands of them. Finally, a single one of the scouts came out of the darkness. It was a small rat-like creature with weird startled eyes and a ring of tendrils around its mouth that came out. Its fur was brown in some places while others were rotten black. Its back was hunched over like an old man over hundred years as its yellow stilted eyes peered straight into Ark’s jade ones.

Ark identified the monster as a Zoog. Factually speaking, they were just like the Dustbroods, albeit weaker. They were mainly beings who resided in the sewer. Perhaps, it was the compulsion of the tower that brought them here. Zoogs were omnivores, they could eat anything they got their hands on. Rotten human meat was a delicacy reserved for the chieftain of each tribe. A single Zoog would not be a problem for Ark. It would not even take a single slice for them to die. What troubled Ark was that there were thousands and thousands of them.

It was in this opportune moment, that Ark remembered something Hercules had told him. Ark thought it was a quote, Hercules might have read in a book a long time ago but that particular phrase was applicable to every single facet of Ark’s life. It went something like a strong man could defeat a stronger man but he would succumb to the might of a thousand weak. Ark was individually strong and the Zoogs were individually weak. That was not the case here. Ark was a single man amidst a kingdom of Zoogs.

It was not like Ark didn’t have any options either. His Arkana stat had reached over fifty, which was a primary reason that Ark could even attempt the plan. For humans, at 25 points in Arkana, they could feel the traces of it inside their own bodies. After they reached 50 in it though, the matter became completely different. Ark overflowed with Arkana in the second scenario itself. It exceeded the limits of the scenario. Ark was just an outlier though, he was sure other people would not have been able to manage such a feat.

The good thing about feeling the traces of Arkana inside one’s own body and overflowing with Arkana was that you could use certain techniques. These were techniques that were kind of like punching and kicking, except with Arkana itself. If Ark had taken a combat card, it would have ingrained the basics of that particular style into his very own body. When he utilized the card, his body would perform it automatically, with only a certain amount of input from Ark itself.

The Arkana manipulation techniques were not like that. He had to concentrate and do his very best if he hoped to defeat the Zoogs. The particular techniques Ark was using had not been discovered yet though. It was during a time when things were somewhat troubled, the three bitter rivals, Merlin, Morgana, and Hecate had written a book aptly titled Arkana manipulation at its finest. There were countless techniques written on them. When Ark was just a warrior, he had been able to do three of those techniques. Before coming back to this timeline, Merlin had given Ark the former’s personal book with countless notes and tricks.

Now that Ark had Arkana, which surpassed his past self in the second scenario, Ark was sure that performing the first technique would not be a problem for him. The first technique was the simplest out of all of them. It was just making sure that your Arkana flowed through your limbs in perfect harmony. In theory, it was pretty easy but when it came to practice… many people had lost their limbs because they couldn’t handle the flow. For Ark who was so familiar with his Arkana, it was simple as breathing. The whole ordeal toll less than five seconds.

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[You have used Arkana strengthening]

[Strength increases by 5 temporarily]

[Agility increases by 5 temporarily]

[Constitution increases by 5 temporarily]

The first technique in essence was known as magic body strengthening. There was a general rule of thumb, a person’s Arkana, divided by 10 gave them an approximate amount by which their stats would rise. As Ark was finishing the magic body strengthening, the Zoogs did not remain idle. They had thought Ark to be a single man, so only a handful of them had lunged at him, intending to finish him off, That turned out to be a big mistake. A single strike from Ark at a precisely calculated angle cut all of them at once.

Red blood tainted the sides of the train. Arks’s blue robes had also been bloodied. This annoyed him to no end. The clothes were entirely for decorative purposes. It gave him no strategic value whatsoever but Ark liked them. It was something he would indulge himself in. The fact that they had been bloodied was not a cause for concern. He could probably wash them in the washroom, right?

Five Zoogs had attacked Ark in unison and by defeating them, Ark got a total of only five coins. Ark thought the coin distribution was completely justified. It was too bad, that Ark was going to monopolize every single coin. It was time for Ark to use his second technique of the day. This was the one technique Ark had used the most in his previous life. It was so versatile and helpful that in the tower, you were considered a master swordsman if you perfected this technique.

Ark was thinking about Sword Aura. He was pretty sure that he would not be able to use Sword Aura with only 50 points in Arkana, but there was a reason, Ark was called a great Swordsman inside the tower. He had mastered the basics first and then had gone on to master the rest. It was the basics in these moments that really helped him out.

The essence of Sword Aura just like Magic body strengthening was very simple in essence. You allowed your Arkana to freely flow from your limbs to your sword. If the sword was of poor quality, it wouldn’t be able to handle the Arkana and shatter. If the sword could handle the Aura, then you had a sword coated with Arkana. There were many applications. The first was the simplest of them all. Ark decided to test it out.

From the Shop Ark bought a poor sword for a measly 100 coins and threw them at the Zoogs. There was a single thing he did before though. Ark’s hands already contained Arkana because of magic body strengthening, so channeling the little bit of Arkana was not a difficult task at all. Just as the sword left Ark’s hands, it shattered into a thousand pieces at that instant, and the Zoogs who were left confused by Ark’s absurd move, burst into tiny globules of blood because of their impact.

This alone had killed nearly a hundred Zoogs at once. It was further confirmed by the notification of coins Ark got a moment later. Ark’s first hypothesis was proved and now the same process is repeated many times. The only thing that made Ark angry was that all the blood splattered and completely ruined his outfit. He was going to need a change of clothes very soon. As Ark got increasingly more number of coins, the Zoogs got progressively scared. It was to that extent that most of them had retreated, breaking the tower’s compulsion on them.

Yet still, some had not retreated. These were the chiefs of the Zoogs, the ones on whom the influence was the most. The chiefs were hundreds in number due to their seemingly vast population. The chiefs were the size of normal house cats and had almost the same features as that of the regular Zoogs. Only the tendrils on their mouth had increased to three instead of one.

Ark was unperturbed by all that. He really didn’t care enough for that type of thing. It was a shame that he couldn’t gain any more coins for free but what Ark had gained was enough for him. Ark disabled his magic body strengthening to conserve some of his own Arkana. He was going to do something that was going to deplete it anyway. This was the second form of the Sword Aura. This time Ark would require a good sword. Ark had got a little more than a thousand coins from the Zoogs he had killed which bought him a well maintained sword from the System Shop.

The second form of the Sword Aura was Ark’s absolute favorite. This allowed the user with the sword to send a slice of Arkana towards their opponent. Against normal human opponents, this would act just as a trick or a feint, but in this narrow space between the two trains where there was no one between Ark and the Zoog chiefs, Ark decided to go all out. The burst of sword aura went out of his sword and sliced two chiefs in half. This continued for more than ten minutes by which Ark’s Arkana had completely depleted. The chiefs of the Zoogs were o more.

Ark waited for the notification and it did not disappoint.

[You have repelled the first Horde of monsters]

[You gain 5000 coins]

[You gain 5000 coins]

[The Second horde will approach tomorrow]

[The Tower wishes you the best of luck]

As Ark expected, the Tower would give no proper rewards till all seven hordes of monsters were either repelled or defeated. Ark was tired by now, so he climbed up into the train again and went to sleep, still in his bloodied clothes.

Ark awoke almost instantly when a friendly looking man, possibly the leader from the second block nudged him. He had a bright smile on his face and yet Ark felt no ill intention from him

“Hi mate! I am Adam, care to have a chat”