After finishing the quest and acquiring my newest skill there was only one thing left to do. Assign my free stat points. Considering both of my active skills relied heavily on stamina, I decided to, once again, put all 25 points into the strength stat.

Extra health would have been a good choice too. But I was itching to try out my new Soul Shot technique. I wanted to be able to use Perception of the Apex Predator to greater effect too.

As it currently stood, I could barely get half a second of time dilation out of it by using almost all of the stamina I had. I was going to need a huge well of stamina to draw from if I ever wanted to use it mid fight.

With that decided I went ahead and placed all of my free points into strength and checked my stats.

Name: Kaleb Akabane

Race: Outworlder

Class: Apex Predator (unique)

Adventurer Rank: Temp

Level: 32

Map Pieces 2/10,000

HP: 331/306 (331)

Stamina: 318/305 (318)

Strength: 275 (288)

Agility: 118

Perception: 114

Vitality: 246 (270)

Intelligence: 39

Personal Skills: Speak English Damnit!, Eat Anything, Minor Poison Resistance, Usurper (unique)

Class Skills (Passive): Newly Qualified Bowman (0%), Dagger (lvl 9), Acid Dhampir Dagger, Acid Arrows, Environmental Hazzard

Active Skills: Perception of the Apex Predator (rare), Soul Shot (ancient)

Blessing: Blessing of Wealth

Familiars: Panda (Daemon)

Admission: Pentagram [Right hand (Morningstar Hotel and Spa)]

I’d grown quite a bit over the course of the quest. I enjoyed being able to see my stat increases and changes in real time. It helped keep me motivated in my goal of getting stronger.

I sat back for a moment and smiled to myself as I read through them. Then I slid off the bed and left the cabin.

The moment I opened the door I could smell the enticing aroma of a home cooked meal. It didn’t smell like copious amounts of overcooked meat though.

I headed into the kitchen-come-dining room with Panda hot on my heels.

“Sally!” He exclaimed, waddle running towards her like an overzealous toddler.

She sat at the table, wearing a fresh bandage over her wound. I was surprised it hadn’t healed yet. Usually sleep and a potion did the trick for me.

“Morning Furball.” She replied with a fangy smile.

“You seem to be doing better.” I said, pulling a chair out and joining her.

“Thanks to you. It seems you saved my life Gonads.” She laughed. “What did I tell you about not doing anything reckless and stupid?” She asked, her tone changing all of a sudden as she leant forward and hit the top of my head.

It felt like my head was a church bell that had been unceremoniously rung. I was dazed for a good moment before I could see properly again.

It seemed that even wounded, she was a powerhouse.

“Yeah sorry not sorry. Someone had to complete the quest didn’t they.” I replied.

“From what Lucas here tells me, you killed a few hundred goblins on your way out too. No small feat for such a puny weakling.”

“Coming from the woman wearing a bandage in a world with healing potions.”

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She laughed and so did I. It was nice to know that she was doing ok. I was curious about the bandage though. However, she seemed to have no intention of explaining it.

So far in my time in Celestia, I’d healed up completely every time. Scars didn’t last long and I had no lingering wounds. A health potion or a good night’s rest would cure just about anything.

I was beginning to wonder if I could even grow limbs back. Though it was more likely that healing would just close up the stump.

“I see you’ve reached phase two.” Sally said idly.

“Yeah, not too shabby for my first week in this world eh?” I grinned.

“It’s passable.” Director Lucas said. I searched to find where his voice had come from and realised he was the one cooking the food.

He stood in the kitchen wearing his signature embroidered suit and white apron that was branded with a facsimile of the Adventure Society slogan.

Adventure Society: Frying The Monsters Under Your Bed.

I thought it was a bit tacky, but I still found it amusing.

It was an odd sight though, to see the gold ranked adventurer who’d saved me by Pied Pipering an entire horde of goblins off a cliff in an apron.

“What can I expect now that I’m a phase two?” I asked the room.

Panda was the first to reply, jumping onto the table. He placed his paws behind his back and began pacing.

“Well kid, phase two is a good starting point for a rookie adventurer. Now you’ve hit it, the levels are going to come slower. You should gain a new skill every ten levels from now on as well.”

“I’ve been getting them pretty randomly so far.” I cut in.

“That’s how the system operates with outworlders. You arrive here with the strength of a newborn. Whilst children in this world are expected to take about eighteen years to reach phase two, you don’t have that long.

“You’re dropped into this world, usually as an adult, and expected to fit in and make it work. The system compensates for this by granting outworlders a few boons.

“One of those is the random acquisition of skills. Kids in Celestia have their entire childhoods to decide what kind of path they want to follow and the skills that come with that path are often granted to them at later phase one levels.

“You don’t get that luxury, so the system grants you skills at random, allowing you to choose some of them and basing the skills it gives you off what you accomplish and how you fight.”

I had wondered about that. The system had seemed to give me skills based off things I’d done. My Apex Predator class was given to me because I pushed that cultist guy into a vat of acid.

Thinking about it, I’d also been offered other classes based on how I’d fought. Like the Trucker class that was entirely based on how Panda and I escaped from the cultist hideout.

“What other perks do I get?” I asked enthusiastically.

“Achievements.” Panda replied poignantly. “No one else gets them. Only you outworlders. They’re a good thing to have as well, those loot boxes are no joke.”

“He’s forgetting the most important thing about phase two though.” Sally interrupted. “It’s a much harder path to walk for an adventurer than it is for professionals. You’ll have to face harder monsters and put yourself in more and more danger if you want to advance.

“Grinding weaker foes isn’t an option for adventurers in this world. You can kill them too, don’t get me wrong, but at a certain point you won’t gain any experience from them.

“The system is fair, but it has a sadistic personality that thrives on violence and high stakes. Never forget that.”

Her words rang true from what I knew of the system so far. It had given me some great skills, though it was rather passive aggressive and rude. But it also seemed to take pleasure in my suffering.

It rewarded me for killing and gave me quests that kept putting me in more and more danger. Not to mention it tattooed me with a map piece that some creepy cultist dudes wanted.

Speaking of the cultists, I hadn’t seen any since we’d escaped their temple. That was only a few days ago but it felt like much longer.

A lot had happened in that time.

“That’s enough work talk for now.” Lucas said, walking towards us with plates in his arms. “You’ll overload the poor boy.”

He placed the plates down on the table in front of us and my mouth began watering. It was a full English breakfast, or close to it.

I was pretty sure there weren’t any pigs in this place, but something on my plate certainly looked like bacon.

In fact the entire plate looked just like a full English: bacon, sausage, eggs, baked beans, hash brown, tomatoes, mushrooms, you name it.

I slyly gave the mushrooms to Panda when Lucas turned back around. Mushrooms were not my thing. Not only did they taste awful, but they also felt awful in your mouth and they held no real nutritional value.

Why would any self-respecting person eat them? Mushrooms were a big bag of nope.

Luckily, my familiar was the herbivore equivalent of a waste disposal unit and he sucked them down like a vacuum cleaner.

His breakfast was quite different to mine and Sally’s. He had a bowl full of greens and some bamboo. Lucas must have stocked up before he came. No way the dude carried bamboo in his inventory normally.

After breakfast I rushed to the deck of the ship. My hunger had gotten the better of me, but I had an active skill I could actually use and I just had to try it out.

When I’d picked the skill an innate knowledge of how to use it had downloaded into my brain. It gave me quite the headache.

I pulled out my bow and nocked an arrow.

Sally had followed me outside. Despite her bandage she didn’t seem overly injured. Without a word she produced a plate from her inventory and I nodded to her.

She counted down from three and launched the plate into the air.

As I pulled back the bowstring I could feel my soul’s energy coursing through my entire body. Like the red rope I’d visualised during meditation, except this energy was acid green and more ethereal.

The rope seemed tangible, almost like I could pick it up and use it. But the green energy felt more like mist, like something I could manipulate, but never touch.

That was energy that my instincts and skill knowledge wanted me to tap into. I visualised it seeping through my fingers and into the arrow.

I could practically see it warping around the arrow itself until it was glowing with an acid green energy. This all happened in a fraction of a second. Then I fired it.

It blasted out of my bow, like a rocket taking off. When it hit its target, the plate vanished. It had been completely vapourised and the arrow just kept going.

I really hoped it wouldn’t accidentally kill someone. I wasn’t expecting it to be that powerful.

“Nice!” Sally exclaimed giving me an approving nod. “Though you might want to use less power next time, at your level, that probably took up all of your stamina. You don’t want to be a one pump chump.”

I checked the stats on my HUD and she was right. From that single shot I’d dropped from 318 to 23 stamina. I was going to need to practice a lot more if I wanted to reliably use Soul Shot in combat without passing out.

Still, I was happy with the power I had at my disposal. Every adventurer needs a powerful attack, that one hit kill attack that they pull out for the big boss.

Now I had one, I felt more like I belonged at Adventure Society.

And speaking of the society, looking over the side of the ship I could see their skyscraper lighting up the Havar skyline.

We’d be back in an hour or so by my best guess, and I had a lot of stuff to do.