The damned frog had given me a truckload of XP. The system messages stated that I was to receive 40XP, multiplied by 12, which was easy to understand, as that was the level difference between myself and the now dead frog, they applied the bonuses for the first kill of said type and for the first time kill of the monster, for a total 1920XP, but that was not all, the system also factored the ‘Unarmed Combat’ bonus, my gains reaching a whopping 2880XP… before I deflated by the following message:
--XP points have been evenly distributed among party members--
In the end, I got a total of 1440XP after tax. Which was nice recompense for getting out of that hot mess. Speaking clearly, I should be dead right now, instead of leisurely strolling through the Odenwald forest. If not for my apparent party member.
I guess the system divided the experience between the bear and myself. Which was fair to be honest, since I do not believe my punches did anything more than bruising and annoying the frog, while it was the actual bear that got it in the end. All in all, I was happy coming out of a sticky situation, with some added XP, and even a few levels to boot.
My attributes looked way better, boosting my confidence for the proxy quest.
------------------------------------
Name: William ‘Evelyn’ Hagen
Human -Level 4
Class: *Redacted* -Level 6
Job: N/A
Grade F
HP: 496/580
Stamina: 317/520
----------------
Strength: 27 (+11)
Agility: 18 (+5)
Dexterity: 18 (+5)
Endurance: 26 (+11)
Vitality: 16 (+5)
Intellect: 15 (+5)
----------------
Class XP: 442/600 (+1440)
Race XP: 361/400 (+720)
Job XP: N\A
FP: 8 (+5)
------------------------------------
I had just earned a total of five levels total, three in my class, and two in my race, it still bugged me to no end not knowing what my class was, but I now suspected it was something like boxer, or pugilist, or martial artists. Because I had unlocked my first skill, but the weird part was that the skill came attached to something I had never heard of before in an RPG context, I had received a ‘Legacy’.
And a weird one at that.
----------------------------------------
Jack Dempsey's Legacy -Common-
William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (June 24, 1895 – May 31, 1983), nicknamed Kid Blackie and The Manassa Mauler, was an American professional boxer, who competed from 1914 to 1927 and reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. A cultural icon of the 1920s, Dempsey's aggressive fighting style, and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Dempsey is ranked tenth on The Ring magazine's list of all-time heavyweights and seventh among its Top 100 Greatest Punchers.
Unlocks the Special move “Dempsey Roll”
Unlocks the special technique “Drop Step & Trigger Step”
Drop Step & Trigger Step
The drop step is how Dempsey began each punch to build momentum. He would lean all his weight onto his front leg, and then quickly lift it. This “triggered” his back leg to save him from falling, quickly pushing him forward. This technique allowed Dempsey to put all of his weight into each punch, as he was essentially falling forward into his opponent and catching himself…with his fist…on their face “Balance is not something to be maintained, but a tool to be manipulated for more force.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Dempsey Roll
A devastating flurry of punches that combine the Drop Step, Trigger Step, bobbing, weaving, and the Elastic Band Principle in the form of the Shoulder Whirl in order to apply all of your power on each punch, without loss of power or momentum.
Doubles Strength Attribute as default while the skill is active, Quadruples the effect on opponents that tower over you.
Requires 50% of remaining stamina to activate, consumes 40% stamina.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Dempsey Roll?? Really?? You Weeb! (Biggs)
No for real I liked that one! You should watch it Biggs! (Wedge)
----------------------------------------
The sys admins’ hurtful messages, and the Wiki-type info dump non-withstanding, it was a nice and clear exposition on what the Legacy was, and what it did.
From what I could understand, by using very similar techniques to the famous and notorious ex-world champion, I had somehow forced the system to recognize my efforts and bestow upon me such a marvelous thing. I was elated at the recognition and the fact that I had accomplished something for myself.
It’s not like those techniques were not commonly used nowadays by many boxers that preferred ‘infighting’ to ‘outboxing’ but it was still nice for the system to recognize their usage in a single skill, while giving them an added ‘systemy’ effect, doubling my strength stat while active, and quadrupling it if I was facing an opponent way taller than me.
It had a huge downside though, the gross stamina consumption. It required me to have at least half my stamina left, and it would eat a forty percent-sized chunk of the total stamina pool.
I was also intrigued by the fact the system had chosen someone to base a skill off of. Would this mean that people could unlock techniques from previous masters in Earth’s history?
What would happen if someone went all serial killer after the system was implemented back on Earth? Would they unlock some morbid Dammer legacy? I shuddered at the thought of what that would look like and hoped with all my heart it was just me being paranoid.
What I was sure about was, that a lot of crazy people would try to unlock video game moves. Maybe I should even try to apply some of my wrestling moves and make them into a Legacy.
Suddenly a Boston Crab or a Figure Four Leg Lock sounded very appealing, heck, I would sell my left arm for a ‘Stunner’ finisher. I could just go and decimate a group of people with just that. Haha.
Goofy thoughts aside, I now had a usable skill, high-risk, high-reward, but a finishing move regardless.
There was another situation happening at the moment. The bear was following me at a distance. Maybe he wanted to eat me, but since he had stopped to get rid of some badger looking things, and ate those, I was not sure if he was following me with the intent to make me his dinner, or just for sheer curiosity.
He stopped when I stopped, ran when I ran, and overall was just pacing himself along for the trip. so I had decided to assume best intentions coming from him, and just paid him no mind. Maybe he was just grateful, or he was smart enough to think that I was dumb enough to find myself in another life or death situation in which he could gain some more XP. Who knew? And I was certainly not inclined to go ask him.
Another thing was that there was no dawn yet, after hours upon hours in this forest, the sun was brilliantly absent. Instead, I could notice that there was now something in the sky that looked like a humongous moon, waxing into existence.
My system sense told me that I had until the full moon to save the proxy. And if my calculations were correct, that meant a couple of days. Time was weird in this here forest. Or at least the moon was.
I doubled my pace towards the beacon, while on the lookout for easy pickings I could use to gain 158XP that I needed for another class level, every bit counts was my new mantra, so I would go out of my way to pursue monkeys and badgers, even came up against a couple of fox like creatures — Odenwald White Fox, Grade-F Level 5— which granted me 37XP each, and some white fur, as a drop, which I fashioned into a pair of makeshift gloves, that only covered the back of my hand and half my fingers, MMA style, to protect my still aching knuckles.
I kept at it for a couple of hours until I got that *DING*
------------------------------------
Name: William ‘Evelyn’ Hagen
Human -Level 5
Class: *Redacted* -Level 7
Job: N/A
Grade F
HP: 635/660
Stamina: 517/600
----------------
Strength: 31 (+4)
Agility: 20 (+2)
Dexterity: 20 (+2)
Endurance: 30 (+4)
Vitality: 18 (+2)
Intellect: 17 (+2)
Class XP: 9/700 (+167)
Race XP: 44/500 (+83)
Job XP: N\A
FP: 10 (+2)
------------------------------------
I was getting hooked on that sweet sound, espcially since the influx of stats felt like a drug, not that I knew what those felt like, having never tried them, but the euphoric feeling was nice, like winning game night, or getting your first kiss.
Two extra levels below my belt, I was feeling more and more ready for what awaited me at the column of light. So I started concisuly moving towards my end goal, while ignoring anything unless directly on my path, as I started running, I noticed the bear did so as well. Now running a few hundred yards to my right, and somehow I knew he had an inkling of where I was going.
I stopped to gather more berries, and threw one directly to bear’s location, saw it snap his jaws and swallow it, giving a little small jump, as if happy. So I threw him another one as I renewed my spirited jog.
I had noticed quite a few outstanding things about my body as I grew in levels, the rate in which my HP and Stamina regenerated was increasing along my Endurance and Vitality stats, what was the ratio, I had no clue, but it was evident that the more attributes I had, the higher my regeneration rates.
I had also noticed that I was stronger, and I don’t mean that I could now punch harder and lift heavier, which I could, but that my flesh and bones were somehow sturdier, it was more difficult for me to develop bruises, lower leveled creatures were unable to sink their teeth on my flesh and I was sure my forearms would have snapped hours ago fighting the foxes if I was a normal human being.
It was pretty neat, I thought, while suddenly falling a couple of feet into what looked like a spring.
I had been so absorbed in my musings that I did not notice the steep slope going into the spring, tripping over myself and falling into the clear, almost iridiscent water of the spring. My totally stylish bomb-splash rippling through its surface, in what otherwise was a pristine, unperturbed clear magenta mini lake.
I could hear the bear huffing in the distance… Was he laughing at me? He totally was, I was sure he was, just you wait bear, no more berries for you!
My attention going back to the spring and its water, I noticed how it appeared to be lit up from below, the water being so clear that I could see the bottom not so far away from my feet. A small, little mound was in the middle of the lake, covered by beautiful red and white lillies, topped by a rusted sword, that seemed to emit a faint blue light.
HUFF! I was brought back to my senses by Bear, who was now standing right next to the spring, he bobbed his head up and down as if encouraging me to reach the mound, Huff! he said again. “Ok, ok. I get it Bear, no need to be all pushy about it” I told him, the bear grunting in response, he started drinking water from the spring, while I swam towards the mound.
As I reached it, stepping onto the flowerbed of lillies, I noticed that there was a small stone plaque with runes carved on it, I concentrated on the runes, and they magically changed into English, obviously the ‘system’ having to do with that.
— Here lies the remains of Hero Sigurd, The Dragonslayer, killed by Hagen von Tronje, in treachery—