Atlas woke up in a cage for the second time in a day.
He groaned, sitting up and pinching himself to make sure he was really awake. He had some weird dreams. He was being chased by an orc and then…
He smacked his forehead. That was real, and it all rushed back, how even his ridiculous leveling speed hadn’t been enough to escape.
He was starting to wonder if that path went on forever. It certainly felt like it.
He grabbed the bars preparing to rip them apart again. But he found that he couldn’t, glancing down at his hands, he noticed two metal bands on his wrists.
“What are these?” he asked nobody in particular.
“Bands that block your powers. They only work on creatures under level 100 and in tier one, or at least these ones do.” -System of Stats
“Thanks.” Atlas said, grateful that he had an omnipotent god-like figure on his side.
“Technically, I am on nobody's side, but I will let it pass, because it's nice to be noticed.” -System of Stats
Atlas just sighed and put his hands on his hips, peering outside of the cage.
He was in the middle of the village, a couple dozen feet from a large open fire.
He hoped that he wouldn't experience that fire burning his flesh.
If they were gonna cook him, could they at least kill him first? Being burned alive wasn't on his bucket list.
He shook his head. What was he thinking? He wasn't going to die here! Not even close! He was going to kill all of the orcs in this village, and easily.
“Is this what humans call fake confidence?” -System of Stats
Atlas slumped. Who was he kidding? He would be hard pressed to even kill a dozen of these orcs.
“Hmm. I have a proposal.” -System of Stats
“What is it?” Atlas said, lying back down, and trying to calm his beating heart.
“You are pretty interesting, and I don’t want you to die just yet, so if you promise to kill all of the orcs in this village, I will upgrade your class and break those bands.” -System of Stats
Atlas turned it over in his head. It was a good offer. But it might also be certain death.
He might be able to escape some other way, but it was looking like this would be the best possible course of action. And the class upgrade didn’t hurt anything.
Class upgrade in process…
Master Slayer (Rare) -> Reaper (Epic)
Stat bonus +3 STR and DEX, +1 all stats -> +4 all stats.
Weakening Punch (A) -> Reaper’s Touch (S)
Hunter’s Instinct (A) -> Reapers Senses (SS)
It was short, but sweet. Not only did his class get upgraded, but so did two of his skills.
As he was marveling over the new changes, the bands on his wrists fell off, clanging on the wooden floor.
As the nearby orcs turned to look to see what the sound was, the system sent him another message.
“Since this is entertainment, could you please make this battle fun to watch? I will reward you if you do.” -System of Stats
Quest: Entertain the system. Reward: Variable depending on how well you perform.
“Fine.” Atlas grumbled, hating that he was being used as a form of entertainment. He wouldn’t complain too much if he got out of this alive, but until then, he wasn’t gonna be happy about it.
Atlas yelled, charging the bars and shattering them with the force of his shoulder.
The orcs yelled, charging him with all sorts of weaponry.
He activated his new skill, Reaper’s Senses.
Everything seemed to slow by just that much, and he could feel all of the orcs, even the ones on the other side of the wooden cage. He no longer could see weak points on the orcs, but he could feel them now.
He just instinctively knew where to put his fist, and it took off an orcs head, and Atlas easily avoided a swipe at his head from the side, grabbing a spear and shoving it back, sending its owner crashing into its buddies.
He entered the rhythm of battle, and it felt like he was completely in control of every second of the fight. The orcs were simply meat bags when compared to the sheer speed and strength of Atlas.
He blew through them all, killing an orc every second.
Before long, he had killed over a hundred of them, and they were starting to slow down, not wanting to attack the “Scary human” just to join their brethren.
Atlas paused, smirking at the enemies before him. They were nothing to him now, just a few minutes ago, he had been scared of these bumbling brutes, but they were pathetic now.
He put his hands behind his back, and yawned, taunting the orcs.
They glared at him, but made no move to attack him, unlike what Atlas thought, they weren’t dumb enough to jump into certain death willingly.
Atlas just grinned at the scared faces of the orcs, striding towards them over the bloodied and broken forms of their brothers.
He made sure to shatter a few skulls on the way.
The orcs' faces turned red with rage. How dare this filthy human tread on their brethren! They had fought honorably, but this human didn’t understand the pride of the orcs, and was trampling them beneath his dirty feet.
Unable to watch their brethren dishonored any more, they charged, weapons raised and faces set. If they died, they would die in battle, not running like cowards that was not who the orcs were.
***
Atlas’s fist punched through the final orcs chest, gripping his heart and yanking it out.
LEVEL UP!!! X 8
“Ewww” -System of Stats
The system whined.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Why would you rip its heart out? I mean I guess it was cool, but it was also gross and made you look like a psycho.” -System of Stats
Atlas just rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you come show me how it's done then?” he asked sarcastically, looking over his new status sheet.
Atlas Channing
Level: 65
Class: Reaper
Subclass: Lifestealer
Titles: Moonwalker, Skiller, Lucky
Skills: Reaper's Touch (S), Lifesteal (B), Reaper’s Senses (SS), Full Might (S), Blur (A)
Spells: Drain (S)
Talent: Complete tutorial
Potential: Complete tutorial
Stats:
Endurance: 95
Constitution: 100
Strength: 197
Dexterity: 197
Wisdom: 118
Intelligence: 120
Free points: 8
Once he was satisfied with his stats, he added 5 points to endurance, and 2 to wisdom, keeping one stat left over. That made all of his stats equal to another stat, which made him happy for some reason.
As he was starting to wind down, the system sent him another message.
“You haven’t killed all of the orcs yet. There are 10 speedsters, 3 chieftains, and 15 guards. You only killed the warriors, who are the weakest of the lot.” -System of Stats
Atlas slumped. He had thought it was over, but he guessed it made sense, he had only killed the fodder, now it was time to kill the leaders.
“Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Or something like that.” -System of Stats
Atlas spun, and he saw six orcs emerge from a crystal house not too far away.
One was the chieftain he had talked to, and the others were far wider and bigger than any other orc he had seen before.
Orc Guard
Level 60
Atlas narrowed his eyes, preparing for another fight.
The chieftain looked at the wide area, filled with dead orc warriors. His eyes widened, and he stared at Atlas with both shock and pure hatred. “Was this you?” He spat.
“Yes, it was. What are you going to do about it?” Atlas said, turning up his acting skill to the max to try and make this more enjoyable for the system. He wanted a good reward.
“Kill him.” The chieftain said, face a mask of fury.
The guards needed no prompting, sprinting at Atlas with huge greatswords.
Atlas’s mind started to churn, eyes turning a deep crimson as he activated Reaper’s Senses. On the inside, he was scrambling to come up with a plan, but on the outside, his lips were curled up in a grin and his face was confident.
An orc leaped forward, bringing its sword down with a thrum of air.
Atlas sidestepped, grabbing its shoulder with Reaper's Touch. The Orc froze, arm seizing up and it toppled to the side, arm starting to turn gray and collapse in on itself.
“I am rethinking this whole upgrade thing, you might have been able to take these guys out without a boost. Did I give you too much power?” -System of Stats
“Just enjoy the show.” Altas grunted out, activating Blur and appearing behind all of the orc, hitting two of them with a gray fist before blurring away.
The orcs he had punched collapsed, struggling to stay on their feet. With not a little malice, Atlas activated Drain on the orc chieftain.
He screamed in pain, crumpling to his knees. He had just been overlooking the fight, but Atlas had attacked him before the chieftain could attack first.
His focus was not on the guards for a split second, and they took the opportunity to ram him with their blades, cutting deep into his abdomen.
Atlas spurted blood from his mouth, but he didn’t make a sound, activating Blur.
A second later, the guard's head went flying.
Atlas breathed heavily, clutching his stomach. How did he make such a stupid mistake? He was wounded now, and he couldn’t… he couldn’t…
In a burst of inspiration, Atlas grabbed one of the many orc corpses, using Lifesteal. He was hit with a rush of euphoria, and his wound writhed, not healed, but looking better than it had.
Atlas activated Blur and Lifesteal running around and fixing his wound with about 5 more orc corpses.
Running back to the guards, he jumped, slammed his leg into one of their skulls, crushing it and leaping off again.
Now there was only one guard who was capable of fighting.
“Blur!”
Now there were none.
Atlas walked over to the three orcs he had used Reaper’s Touch on.
They were shriveled up, barely breathing. Had his skill done that much damage? He put them out of their misery, turning towards the chieftain.
Only to find two more chieftains. And ten guards. And ten speedsters.
Oh joy.
The speedsters all shot after him, and Atlas shot towards them as well, gray mist on his fists, and red light spilling from his eyes. One speedster was faster than the others, reaching Atlas within a few seconds, Atlas lashed out with his fist, hitting the orc straight in the face, obliterating its face in a spray of blood and brain matter.
The other orcs slowed down noticeably, but that is when Atlas activated his movement skill.
He became a blur of motion, and all of the speedsters collapsed to the ground, gray mist eating away at their backs.
Atlas didn’t let up, blurring towards the guards as well. The guards picked up on what was happening, swinging their swords blindly in hope of hitting him.
None of them were even close. In the blink of an eye, half of the guards were dead, or as good as.
The remaining guards panicked trying to make a break for it.
None of them got more than a couple steps before they died still standing up.
Atlas held up one of the guards by the throat, glancing at the chieftains with a bloody smile. One of the orcs had hit him in the mouth by accident while trying to flee.
He started to walk towards the chieftains, only to find himself frozen in a psychic prison. He could still move, but barely, and not easily.
So he just brute forced it.
Full Might!
The prison shattered, and Atlas all but teleported in front of the chieftains, killing one with a stomp to the face, messing up its face.
He turned to the others, punching one's head off with a flash of gray mist, and deactivating Drain. He wanted to kill this last one on his own terms.
He turned to it, finding it already dead. Crap.
Well, that had been anticlimactic, but the fight had still been fun, he had gotten to play with his new powers, and had fun doing it.
LEVEL UP!!! X5
Quest completed!
Rewards pending…
The levels were a nice bonus, but they weren’t anything big, compared to his total.
“Hmm. I might have to nerf you now. I think I upgraded your class a little too early. I forgot how weak monsters around your level are.” -System of Stats
Atlas panicked. He just got this power! He couldn’t lose it now! “How about my reward is for you to leave me with this power as it is!” He thought aloud, hoping that it would work.
“Hmm. That is an intriguing offer. I was going to give you a couple dozen levels or a SS tier skill, but this is fine too. You have yourself a deal.” -System of Stats
Atlas breathed a sigh of relief. With this power, he would be able to get out of the tutorial pretty quickly.
“I’m bored.”
Atlas’s blood ran cold.
There was a deep rumbling beneath his feet. “Can’t you at least let me rest for a few minutes.” He yelled, knowing it was useless.
The ground a hundred feet away opened revealing a large mole.
King of the Caves: Mole
Level 100
You have encountered a Boss of Impossible difficulty! When you kill it, you will unlock another one of your skills, and get other rewards. Be wary though, as a Boss is no weakling, it is a foe that you might struggle to face with your current powers. Consider leveling up a bit before fighting it.
Great. Just great. Could a guy ever get a break?