Zac woke up early the next day. He had slept outside with axe in hand and geared up, just in case of a nightly raid. He once again set out to scout the vicinity, but nothing seemed to have moved through there during the night.
Zac wasted no time, and set out towards the direction of his fight against the herald. He wanted to scout out the situation before proceeding toward the next Herald.
He still wanted to complete the quests as quickly as possible, but the new enemies had proved that something had changed on the island. Zac wanted to scout the situation out until he knew what that change meant, and decided to start from where he had fought Vul.
After walking for a while he ran into a barghest. A creepy smile appeared on Zac’s face, and he brandished the axe.
The beast was aggressive as ever at least, as it mindlessly charged at him. Zac sidestepped to let it run into a tree behind him just to gauge its power.
He was surprised to see that it didn’t actually just charge in to the tree as before, it instead bit into it and ripped a good chunk out of the wood out almost impossibly fast. Of course, it still couldn’t stop its momentum, and still hit the tree square with its now closed maw.
Zac wasted no time and with a swing completely decapitated the demon. He felt almost no resistance when cutting through the spine of the demonling, and the axe continued down with such ease that he almost cut into his own leg before he could stop the descent. He knew the axe was extraordinarily sharp since yesterday, but he was still shocked how easy it went through..
As he continued on he wouldn’t avoid any beasts anymore, rather he’d go out of his way to kill them if he found them. He looked forward to getting the Axe Mastery skill, and wouldn’t miss an opportunity to work on his 1000 kill goal.
He had been annoyed when he had noticed that only the Axe Mastery quest progressed from kills, not the Forester’s Constitution quest. He would have to figure out what was missing later. He also confirmed that the Chop quest did not progress from battling, even though it mentioned chopping bodies.
As he was advancing he noticed that the beasts had indeed improved. They were stronger, faster, and more impressively they seemed smarter. It was as if a limiter had reduced all stats, including intelligence. Then it had been lifting gradually during the last week of the month, and as the last day passed the limit had been ripped off completely.
Overall he gauged that the beasts’ stats had improved by roughly 50% since four days ago. The danger improved more than that though, as they had started doing feints and use tactics while attacking compared to before. The barghest were of course still dum-dums, but not to the point that they’d mindlessly charge into a wall anymore.
The rewards for killing the beasts hadn’t been improved with their improved performance. It seemed that Zac truly had gotten a bargain when hunting during the first month. Zac snickered as he imagined the cultivators in the beginner villages hunting rabbits and boars around the edge of the village for a mere 2-3 Nexus Coins a piece, like in some RPG.
The increase in strength didn’t bother him when it came to the fodder demons that was peppered through the island. They had improved, but so had he. Even the empowered demons were defenseless against his new weapon. It felt like proper gear actually had a greater effect compared to attaining a class.
Of course, the effect of a class would show over time rather than immediately it seemed. Also the immediate effect on him was not too large, as he already had such high stats from his titles. If someone with only the basic stats got this class with accompanying titles, it’d likely been a pretty large boost to him.
As he killed another demon with a lazy swing he felt the familiar burst of cosmic energy that came with a level up. He was delighted to see that he did get his class stat points in addition to his two free points, rather than instead of. So every level he now got 7 points instead of two.
He paused a second to go over how to allocate his points again. He had thought about it a bit yesterday, and had come up with a plan. As his class seemed to focus on Strength and Endurance, so Zac would do the same with his free points.
He felt that the skills and class itself might somehow synergize with these stats, so getting them as high as possible would be a good option. Even if he was wrong it would be ok, as both these stats was strong on him in any case.
If vitality helped him heal up after getting wounded, then endurance would protect him from getting wounded. Endurance didn’t only help with his stamina, it also toughened his body up. Now that he had a high enough vitality that he wouldn’t die from ordinary wounds, he could focus on endurance to make him even harder to kill.
The other option he had considered was to put the put the points in dexterity, making him quicker. However, for most of the fights so far speed had not been an issue or limiting factor for him, so he decided to hold off on that for now.
Furthermore, among the skills that was added to the Nexus Node after he got his class was one that he felt might be able to substitute the need for Dexterity. It was called [Steps of Gaia] and cost 575 000 Nexus Coins. It was a huge amount of coins, far more than he had gathered in total.
But it seemed to fit him perfecty. It was a movement-type skill, which he assumed would help him move quicker. It would both help him charge at enemies faster, and also allow him to easier dodge attacks. It also seemed to be connected to the earth and nature, same as his class, so he felt there might be synergy along the road.
He therefore had decided to start saving up for the skill. He believed that it shouldn't take too long to get the neccessary coins, as his speed of killing beasts had improved significantly with his gear and higher stats.
Finally he decided to put 1 point in strength and 2 in Endurance and kept going. A while later he reached the area where he fought the Herald. The aftermath of from the battle was evident, with crushed trees and rocks all over. He still hadn’t run into any humanoids, and the forest was largely like it was before.
Zac slowly crept toward the spot where the Herald had fallen, alert of his surroundings. He was surprised to find that the carcass had been removed from the spot, as had the poles he had planted.
He could only guess that they had been moved back to the base. He wasn’t sure as he hadn’t seen it, but he assumed that the base were either right at the incursion, or in the mountains. If it was closer to the other sides he felt that he should have run into more of the humanoids by now.
Unless there only were a scant few of the humanoid demons, of course. But Zac’s intuition told him that he wouldn’t be that lucky. The System had screwed him over pretty consistently, and he saw no reason that it would stop anytime soon.
He stopped for a while to decide what to do now. He hadn’t really accomplished anything so far, except for killing some demons. He didn’t need to ponder for long however, as he suddenly heard subdued voices in the distance.
Zac properly hid himself inside a few bushes as the voices drew closer. He was disappointed to find out that he couldn’t understand the words. So much for a universal translation system.
It was a surprisingly smooth and melodic language, specked with vowels flowing like a river. He had assumed that the language of demons would be harsh and perhaps even guttural.
‘Wait, is that racism?’ a stray thought entered his mind, making him lose focus before setting his sight on the approaching party.
The party looked somewhat similar to the one he had killed earlier, except that this party was comprised of four individuals rather than three.
There were 3 males and one female. The two males looked like a mix of rangers and warriors, dressed in leather armors and wielding a sword each. The female walked in front and seemed to be the lookout, as she was carefully scouting the surroundings and had a bow slung on her back.
The final man was unarmed but seemed to be a leader, or at least of higher status. The quality of his gear seemed to be a notch above the others, such as a chest plate made of the same black metal as his axe handle. It was engraved in the same manner as the handle as well, but more intricate.
Zac had a feeling that these engravings had some sort of effect, like magically imbuing the gear with sharpness or defense. He had found no ways to use the engravings so far though, and hoped he might get an idea from the unarmed man.
Another reason Zac surmised the well-equipped man was of higher status than the other was that he could sense a formless pressure emanating from him. It felt like he was looking at a dangerous beast rather than an unarmed man.
While Zac was well hidden he decided to slowly recede further into the brushes. This party seemed both deadlier and more alert compared to the last one.
His actions were in vain however, as the female suddenly grabbed her bow and an arrow in a fluid motion and without hesitation fired it straight in the direction of Zac.
Zac tried to get out of the way, but there was no time as the arrow slammed straight into his side.