swish.. bubble.. swish.. bubble.. bubble..

"...This really sucks.." Vincent mused out loud to himself. Currently he was standing, bare arms and chest in front of his forge. He was stirring molten metal with a massive ladle of some kind. "Normally I would just have the stupid plant do stuff like this.." He flinched as a massive pool of magma popped, causing some of the molten liquid to land on his skin instantly boiling away his flesh.

His chest and arms had become large, and perfectly symmetrical. They looked like they were chiseled from marble, his size and definition practically unobtainable by human standards. The man clenched his jaw and shut his eyes as his chest, abs and arms smoked and began healing. The now exposed muscle was slowly being covered over by a layer of fresh, pink skin. He waited for the miserable searing sensation to dull before continuing to stir.

It didn't take long for his skin to meld itself back together. It was a disgusting and painful process but things like this passively boosted his skill levels far more than doing things the 'easy' way. Absolute timing pinged within his head. 'Ahh.. there we go'

He poured the boiling, liquid metal into a mold roughly in the shape of a large ingot. He deftly manipulated the air around him to gently cool the boiling substance just enough to maintain its shape, but keeping it still warm enough to be mallable. He pulled the metal out with his bare hands.

*Sizzleeeee*

He winced as the skin on his fingers was Burnt to a crisp. He shaped the metal with his raw physical strength and multiple skills like extract, refine and telekinesis. Even as he looked up briefly and saw the notification pop up he continued working.

Congratulations! Fire resistance has increased to 50!

New trial(s) available!

Trial: The flaming lord of despair appears! (Fire resistance lvl 50)

"Yeah I'm definitely not fighting no flaming lord of madness or whatever the fuck that just said." He decided as he finished crafting his seventh metal ingot. He wasn't really sure what type of metal this would be considered. The system merely read: metal ingot lvl 55; a material used primarily in crafting.

Strange that he was level 60 and he could barely produce level 55 materials. And oftentimes his finished product, such as a full set of armor, was barely in the 40's. He shook his head. After hammering away, extracting and refining the final impurities he heated the metal one last time to give it a smooth, Shiny surface. Once done he sold it for what he could only assume was decent money for the hour it took to make the damn things.

He made about 10k per ingot and the material cost was only 1000 to produce. Honestly most of it was Gaia's blood, his own blood, and monster parts. The only thing he really purchased was the raw ore because frankly, he hated trying to locate and mine the material himself. He made a 9000 dollar profit on each ingot and that was enough. If he took the time to craft an entire set of armor he could make ten to fifteen times that amount but that took an entire day's worth of work.

He had roughly twelve million gold at this point. If money functioned in a similar way to the old world he supposed he had a small fortune and could be considered rich. He could buy any non leveled item in the entirety of the system shop.

But that was the problem. Those were all non-leveled items. Basic materials such as ores, containers and tools. Any sets of armor or weapons he saw were always level 99 and cost well into the billions if not trillions. Even if he sat here all day and night with his plant companion pumping out the highest quality goods he could make, it would take years to amass those kinds of funds.

His current armor was practically useless. All of his attack and defense came from his sword and shield which he got from a trial. Though.. maybe that's how it was supposed to be? He was sure some rich spoiled bitch out there could afford the best of the best but most probably had to work themselves to the bone if they wanted true power. It was just as well. Vincent decided he'd rather have an indestructible body than indestructible armor.

He looked at his list of skills, specifically his four highest ones;

Smithing (common) lvl 60

Farming (common) lvl 59

Cooking (common) lvl 56

Alchemy (uncommon) lvl 57

He knew that naturally as levels rose, skills would gain XP more slowly but… He wasn't prepared for just how massive the sharp incline in required XP would be every 25 levels.These were four of his most fundamental skills that he'd had almost the entire time he'd been here. By his calculations that had to have been approaching 2 years.

Day in and day out the companion worked on these skills in particular yet even still they were only just now approaching the sixties. And that was with a passive, steady flow of continuous incoming XP. How many others had a passive way to train their abilities, even while they slept? He shuddered, imagining how long it would have taken him to grind up all of his skills without the myriad of broken abilities he received from his plot armor.

He made his way over to his stream and began meditation. A frown crossed his features. His intelligence had a combined total of damn near two hundred with his complete tranquility's ridiculous ability. Even still, his current predicament was a puzzle he just couldn't solve.

He still had a while to train for his fight against the Fang and last time he had even managed to make it bleed and retreat. As far as Vincent was concerned, if the damn beast could bleed.. it could be killed.

That being said, the task before him was daunting and honestly a bit hopeless. In the time he had been in the system his stats had grown from literally 22 to almost 500 and his highest stat by far was arguably the most useless. If he had more time.. roughly another three years to get each of his stats to 250, then he could probably defeat the Fang. He simply didn't have that long.

He frowned, considering the fact that he was being extremely selfish... Gildarts was fighting for the honor of becoming king of his people to lead them to prosperity. The old swordsman Orc he had met in the other cave was supporting another in hopes of restoring his tarnished honor, he was sure…

That just left Vincent who really only fought for himself.. truthfully he didn't care much about the affairs or the outcome of the ascension or whatever. He just wanted the right to be trained by the powerful Orc so that he in turn could become powerful.

Obviously he could blast through as many trials as possible, and maybe create a bunch of stupidly ineffective skills just for the stats but he somehow felt like it just wouldn't be enough. Plus a lot of potency would be lost due to the intentions and lack of hard work in such actions. Besides, he was working towards building something very specific within himself and throwing in random components and skills at this stage would not make for a solid foundation.

His mind was running a million miles an hour. The effect on intelligence was pretty much what one would expect. You didn't just automatically know things you didn't know before but your thoughts become sharper and quicker. Answers and memories came on instinct. By combining that with his exotic skills Vincent began to piece together the puzzle of what would be the next steps the man took in his evolution.

His eyes snapped opened and he made his way out of the cave. "What I need right now is to fight. Maybe the weakest possible creatures I can find.." Only by pushing himself to the limits and struggling to survive for the next year could he possibly hope to somehow grow enough to hunt down the Fang.

Then again.. Gildarts said other factions may come after the creature too. He may not even have to do the brunt of the work. As long as he got the killing blow.. he would get the reward… Shaking his head the dark haired man snorted. "That's really not.. my style." He sighed.

He walked through the path he'd made through the grass stopping just before the entrance of the jungle. The sun was warm on his back, but no longer overly bearing due to his heat resistance. He turned so half his body was in the sun and the other was smothered by the shade of the jungle. He held up his hands studying them, one bathed in shadow the other in sunlight.

It was strange.. feeling the heat on one side and the coolness on the other. To his special eyes, the flows of energy were slightly more ecstatic in the light and more mellow in the shade but the difference was so subtle he could barely even sense it. He began gathering energy in both his palms and watching carefully as his flows interacted with the light and shadow dancing across his palms. His eyes began to glow, unusual comprehension observing how his energy dominated the environment's.

He figured if he wanted.. the man could probably mimic the patterns of energy and use his own in similar manners. But mimicking two different styles of energy at once was difficult and for a moment Vincent thought it may have been impossible with his current mental prowess but after a few more seconds…

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Congratulations! Skill: Shadow manipulation (Rare) achieved!

Congratulations! Skill: Radiant Light (Rare) achieved!

Shadow manipulation (Rare) Allows the user to control the flows of the very shadows themselves granting many offensive and defensive capabilities. Due to the 'Rare' rarity gain a small increase to Range and degree of control per level. (Passive ability)

Radiant light (Rare) Allows the user to emit a bright light from anywhere on their body. The light can be used both offensively and defensively depending on intensity. Due to the 'Rare' rarity range and intensity gain a small increase per level. (Passive ability)

"HA. I'll play with those later. For now I need to focus on my goal.." He laughed in amusement as he walked into the bowls of the jungle. He did say he didn't want a bunch of useless new skills, but he loved collecting the elements of the weather and he wouldn't even consider them a waste. As something of an alchemist he wanted to try and master them all, in time.

Not long into his travels, maybe an hour or so, he came upon something he'd never encountered before. In his experiences most of the jungle was bustling with activity and noise; yet the area he had stumbled upon was dead silent.

Every 10 feet were strange pulsing yellow mushrooms. He didn't know why but he had a strong feeling they were the reason for the silence. Possibly because they were the only biological creatures in an otherwise unoccupied space. As he approached them the air seemed to hum, and his hair stood on end. It was soon made clear they were sentient when they turned to face him and he saw.. A face. They had small narrowed eyes that were comically close together, their sockets stretched into a frown.

"Har-uum!" One said taking two small steps before pulsing with a bright yellow. Vincent was almost positive if he touched one of those things he was going to get electrocuted to the point of peeing himself. He tried identifying one of their stats but only received a name for his troubles. Well that and fortunately enough, an indication of their level. They were level 25.

He sighed. That was as weak as it got around here. And they seemed slow as all hell to boot. They had barely made two more steps toward him during his musings. Some areas had small clusters of them but mostly they were a few car lengths apart from one another so they shouldn't be hard to pick off, he figured. Vincent was a stone's throw away from the first mushroom when it's frowned deepend and it grunted. The thing squatted and contorted slightly.

"Hyouuuuu!" It hummed, and before he could react a bolt of lightning hit him square in the chest, blasting him backwards. "Hwahh!" He gasped crashing into a tree. He slid down onto his butt panting and trying not to pass out. 'Note to self.. sixth sense isn't as fast as lightning.. yet.'

Congratulations! Skill: Electric resistance (Uncommon) achieved!

He didn't have time to read the rest as another bolt shot for him. Based on the fact that he had lost nearly 4000 health from the first one, he definitely didn't want to take a second blast like that. Shadow stepping backwards, the man from earth launched a comet at the would-be assailant. The ball of fire and ice didn't do much as far as he could tell but it kept the thing from launching anymore bolts while he took cover.

From behind a tree he huffed, peeking at his stats. With all his buffs and bonuses his health totaled nearly 12000, but he hated seeing it drop below half so he was trying to avoid that. He had no idea those damn things would be this strong!

He quickly downed a health potion before hopping back out once more. Summoning his sword and shield the level one human thought of simply blocking the next lighting bolt but unfortunately it didn't quite work that way. It blocked a bit of the damage but only about half. His arm was thrown sideways and his shield sent flying from his grasp before another bolt forced him to hastily parry with sword in hand. He deflected a portion of the blast but was still sent tumbling backwards.

Congratulations! Skill: Parry (sword) (Common) achieved!

Parry (sword) (Common) Allows the user to deflect attacks if timed correctly. Due to the 'Common' rarity, the amount of damage deflected increases by a miniscule amount per skill level. Strength grants a small bonus to this skill. (Active skill)

Scrambling to his feet Vincent clicked his tongue. Interesting but not quite what he was going for with all of this.. he realized he needed more long distance attacks. He also needed something that was good against lightning.. another element perhaps..

*trickle trickle trickle*

There! a small stream about 15 yards to his left. He rolled to the side as the next bolt of lightning came at him, shadow stepping and appearing beside the stream behind the monsters. He bent down beside it trying his hardest to focus but also keeping an eye turned towards his would-be attackers as he plunged his hand into the water.

The creatures slowly, and awkwardly spun around to face him. "Come on.. come on damn it.. if I can just.. understand the flows.. haha!... AHHH fuck!" He yelled, being struck by not one but two bolts while his hand was submerged. He stood shakily to his feet before slowly turning to face the beats. Smoke was slowly coiling off him. He glared, "You.. motherfuckers!"

His azure eyes flashed, one turning red as he raised one arm. There was a pulse and all of the mushrooms before him froze. His sixth sense, being just an improved version of predatory instincts, still had the ability to freeze an opponent if his will was strong enough.

He didn't fully register what was going on. He was pissed. But a second later he formed the ability he needed.. raising his other arm..

Congratulations! Skill: Water torrent (Rare) achieved!

Water torrent (Rare) Using nearby sources of water, the user creates a highly pressurized jet stream to damage enemies! Due to the 'Rare' rarity gain a small bonus to range and power of stream per skill level. (Active skill) (consumes 200 mana)

He shot a blast of water at the closest mushroom. Unfortunately it did little more than douse the creature and knock it over. As the creature rolled on its side and flailed its feet the wind left Vincent's sails. The rest of the mushroom creatures began to break free of his telekinetic grip. "Well.. that won't do."

Drinking a potion, Vincent yelped and rolled to the side as another lightening bolt flew past. He shadow stepped to get in close to one of the creatures, raising his left arm and blasting it with another stream of water. Once the creature was off balance, leaning dangerously on one leg Vincent began to charge an unwavering strike with his right hand.

As the creature finally steadied itself and made to turn and face Vincent it was met by a ten second charged punch to the face. The creature squealed and was blasted backwards several feet but sustained very little damage. He looked down at his smoking fist. He had sustained almost as much damage as the damn mushroom did. That attack was definitely more effective with a sword…

Another lightning bolt hit him square in the back causing him to roar in pain and frustration. He rolled to his feet and took in his surroundings. There were at least a dozen of those mushrooms closing in and so far all the man could do was piss them off.

It was getting difficult to dodge the multitude of lightning bolts flying at him. Even after managing to down two health potions during the whole commotion, his Hp was teetering around half life. He hadn't used the second wind yet but he really didn't want to if it could be avoided.. growling in frustration, mostly at how weak he still felt, the man cursed. If Vincent couldn't even kill one of those damn things how could he expect to beat the Fang?

He did get some useful new skills though.. Decidingly, the man was trying his best to collect each of the elements so that when he began learning engraving he could replicate that ridiculously powerful attack he had seen Zar-Rhah use. If he had something like that… he chuckled. Baby steps. He would return and grind out the mushrooms later.

Honestly finding them had been a happy accident. They were much weaker than any other enemy he'd encountered this far, and would probably serve as great practice for fighting multiple, quick enemies at once.

Unfortunately, they seemed like magical beings and he needed to face a physical based enemy. To that end, Vincent really needed to raise his defense if he hoped to survive another run in with the Fang. He shuddered, remembering how it had practically one shot him in their previous encounter.

He shadow stepped several times to get away and continued on his journey for about another hour or so. It kind of bummed him out that other than that one time, he had never really found any kind of items or chest around the jungle. That's not to say that he had explored it in its entirety by any means. In fact the man had probably explored roughly a tenth of the jungle all together in his two years and that was being generous. Not to mention some areas were just altogether inaccessible with the amount of high level monsters that roamed around.

Most weren't overly aggressive unless you posed a challenge but he really wasn't trying to figure out which ones were. He was walking at a leisurely pace, sneak fully active of course when he noticed an extremely slow moving.. rock? Upon closer inspection it appeared to be some type of cross between a bird having a beak and claws but also like a tortoise creature, with a bulky gray rock-like shell and reptilian skin. It slowly drug itself along the jungle ground.

He tried to identify the thing..

Name: mountain-back turtle

Lvl: 25

Stats: unknown

Jesus, that figured. Given its level though the system should have called it a hill back if anything. His sword had returned by now so he summoned it. He made sure to push sneak to full blast, crouching and charging an unyielding strike as he slowly crept up behind the creature. While charging the ability he felt himself approaching his limit.

He discovered, with this particular skill, the longer you charged the attack the more energy built up within the body and the higher your stats had to be to withstand the pressure. If you charged it too long or tried to push too far past your limits, the bones and muscles in your arm would shatter when you used the strike.

Could be extremely useful for a sure fire one shot, but this was not one of those situations. So when the attack had charged for roughly ten seconds he unleashed it. A jaw rattling, concussive force rocked the wooded area.

Congratulations! Sneak attack damage times 3!

He had known sneak attack damage was a thing based on the system's explanations of the sneak ability but he'd never really had a chance to take advantage of it before. If you wanted to, you could ask the system how best to use your abilities. Sometimes it would give you a general, vague idea and other times it would give you a freakishly descriptive one.

Vincent honestly preferred to figure things out by trial and error for the most part. That being said he wished he would have known that the multiplier on his sneak attacks was already at a whopping three. He would have been using them a lot more often, taking advantage of the extra power.

Upon impact with the turtle the thing had been buried in a three foot deep crater. His sword had been blown out of his hand yet again, due to the reverberations from the strike but it was still within sight so he didn't fret too much. He shook his wrist, twisting it a few times earning a satisfying crunch. If he had charged that attack much longer he would have blown his hand off.

As the dust cleared he couldn't help but gasp. "You're shitting me.. not a scratch on it." Truly the turtle seemed to barely even notice the attack as it turned slowly around from its crater and fixed Vincent with a glare.

He took a step back in shock and a second later the turtle spun at a speed that most tornadoes could only ever dream of achieving. He quickly raised his shield, activating an unyielding guard. Luckily it was just in time because the turtle bludgeoned his shield instantly, denting it and throwing Vincent straight up into the air. "Shiiiit!!" He spun mid air and angled himself as he reached the Apex of his ascent. He was getting the hell out of here. He used the shadow step several times in rapid succession…

A few minutes later the man was bent over panting heavily, one arm on his knee the other using a tree for support. "What the hell.." *huff* *huff* "What is up with everything in this God forsaken jungle sending me flying with their casual strikes. Am I seriously that pathetic?.." He mused. it seemed so..

This is how the majority of the rest of his day would go. He would find a creature that he wasn't quite familiar with, get his ass handed to him and run away. But each time he was getting just a little bit better.. The faster enemies forced him to get better at managing his speed related abilities while the magic beasts often increased his resistances and tactical thinking. Pure strength related enemies helped him focus on not only refining his combat skills but teaching him about leverage and timing...

Each encounter provided him with valuable experience that all equated to a warrior who was slowly becoming greater than the sum of his parts. Even though his attributes weren't rising over much his combat instincts were, and that could prove deadly here within the Nexus.

His new, lower level skills benefited the most. At any given time whether he was traveling or fighting something he was cycling between using each and every one of his 43 skills, minus the ones he relied on his plant to grind such as courage and farming. As he was traveling he kept his shadow manipulation wound tightly around his left arm and his radiant light pulsed from his right.

He was starting to look a bit freakish, perhaps even inhuman. With each of his arms glowing in contrast, a whirlwind of energy was rapidly billowing out around him. Many of his abilities gave no indication they were active unless one could understand the flows of the System, but there were quite a few others that did.

With each step he used Shockwave, both to grind it out and honestly because he looked bad ass bounding through the jungle surrounded by his volatile skills like this. He had very little presence due to his sneak so to most of the creatures in the jungle, it seemed as if some invisible wizard was firing off random ass spells or something. The denizens of the shaded tropics shook their heads and turned back around. Just another day in the jungle.

End of chapter 18