Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 25: Stronger

A strong surge of cosmic energy inundated Zacs whole body. It felt like his whole being was purified and reshaped. Instinctively he felt an enormous fractal imprinting itself and covered his whole being. However, most parts of the fractal was indistinct and blurred.

He also felt the powerful rush into his cells which indicated the improvement of his stats. Zac was completely oblivious of his surroundings as he was drowning in the sensations. Unfortunately the feeling didnt last long, and he soon came down from his rush.

From a first look he didnt feel that different, apart from his condition had improved significantly. It felt like his wounds had largely healed, even his broken arm.

But when he opened his status page he was shocked. His stats had made a great leap.

Name

Zachary Atwood

Level

25

Class

Hatchetman (F)

Race

Human (F)

Alignment

Human (Earth)

Titles

Born for Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer I, Full of Class, Rarified Being, Trailblazer

Strength

92

Dexterity

48

Endurance

51

Vitality

57

Intelligence

38

Wisdom

38

Luck

54

Free Points

0

Nexus Coins

14690

All his stats had gained a jump of 9 points, except strength which had increased a whopping 28. As he had noticed that every stat point gave a larger increase in improvement compared to the one before, he knew he likely had doubled his actual physical power from the increase in strength.

He noticed that his class was added in a row, with F denoting the grade of the class. He was surprised to notice that his Race had also gotten graded, as it was blank before. He was excited at the prospect that he could actually evolve his race somehow.

Hopefully it meant that his power would rise, rather than growing a tail or a third eye though.

He had gained three new titles from getting a class as well. Zac focused on them to get a description

[Full of Class: Reach level 25 and attain a Class. All stats +1]

[Rarified Being: Attain a Class graded as Rare. All stats +1]

[Trailblazer: First to gain a Class in world. All stats: +5]

That explained where the all-around improvements to his stats came from. The first two titles were things that anyone could attain. However the Trailblazer title was another title that only he would get on Earth.

Zac felt a comforting from what that title represented. He still managed to keep his lead, even over the chosen cultivators who got help in the beginner villages. Even if he was deemed trash by the System and left to rot to this island, he had defied fate so far and was still on top.

He had to admit that the feeling of power was somewhat addicting. Finding his family was still his priority, but he also craved the feeling of becoming stronger and stronger. He lived for the moment after every battle where he absorbed the cosmic energy, and having the pure unadulterated force of life course through his veins.

He had started to think more and more about where the limits of strength lay. By now he could punch a large rock and it would shatter, and only one month had passed. How powerful would he be in a year? A decade? Just thinking about it made him excited. Of course, he would never let himself forget that to get there in one piece he would have to walk through an ocean of blood.

He didnt linger on the subject as he was anxious to look through his other changes. He thought Class and a new window appeared

[Class: Hatchetman, Grade-F, Rare]

Strength +10, +10%.

Level: +3 strength, +1 endurance, +1 free point per level.

Skills:

Axe Mastery (LOCKED)

Chop (LOCKED)

Foresters Constitution (LOCKED)

Followed that were rows of blocked out information. At least that showed where the large strength boost came from. The +3 strength per level didnt seem to be retroactive, otherwise hed have almost twice the strength by now. But it showed that every level from now would give a much larger boost compared to before.

Zac was annoyed to see that he actually didnt get any skills for free as he had hoped. There were 3 skills listed that seemed somewhat intuitive. Axe Mastery and Chop seemed offensive, and Foresters Constitution was defensive. At least he hoped Chop was an offensive skill, and not a woodworking skill.

He didnt quite understand how Chop would be better than what he had been doing before, but he guessed he would find out. It seemed that he couldnt get any information about the skills until he unlocked them.

The next problem was how to unlock the skills. Soon he found the method in the quest tab. It showed a new category, which was class quests. Each skill needed a quest to be completed.

Axe Mastery (Class): Mastery is born through battle. Fell 1000 enemies. (0/1000)

Chop (Class): First chop Wood. Then their bodies. (0/10 000)

Forester's Constitution (Class): Fight in the forests, be one with nature. (0/30)

None of the quests seemed very hard to accomplish. The Axe Mastery made no distinction of the strength of the enemies, and with his improved physique he could grind it out in a week or two if he just focused on slaying barghests.

The chop quest seemed to take time rather than being hard, but if he changed his daily work-out routine to chop wood it would be done sooner or later. Chopping wood was a great work-out anyways.

The last quest seemed either extremely easy or rather hard. Just 30 fights and it would be done. The whole island was a large forest so finishing it seemed to be the easiest of the three. It depended on what be one with nature meant. If it was just some random words, great.

If he actually had to somehow merge with nature, or become a tree-hugger it felt far more annoying.

Finally it seemed that he found out everything that he could for now. He had entered the outpost shop as well, but it seemed nothing new was added from gaining a class.

There were a few new skills added at the Node, but they were prohibitively expensive, with the cheapest being 500 000 Nexus Coins.

All in all it had been a fruitful day. He was disappointed that the demon had self-destructed rather than answering questions. There were so many things he needed to know. To be fair, Zac would likely have killed him after questioning the demon in any case. That the demon chose making a last ditch effort to bring Zac with him to hell was a logical choice.

Luckily the gear he gained and the strengthening made the sting less severe. He still looked positively insane from the blood and broken gear, and didnt want to put on the gear while looking like this. He left the camp to patrol the vicinity for a while, and then went back.

This would likely be a new addition to the daily routine. The humanoid demons seemed far more organized compared to the dumb beasts that hade came through the incursion first.

Satisfied that there were no enemies nearby, he moved water from the water array into the tankers reservoir. Finally he ripped the patchwork armor off, and took the first good shower in over a week. It was a risky move, but the grime and blood was making even him crazy, and he needed to get it off. He brought his new axe with him into the bathroom in case he was ambushed while in there.

It took half an hour to scrub the layers of dirt and blood of himself before stepping out of the shower.

Even cleaned up he could barely recognize himself in the mirror. His whole body had undergone a metamorphosis during the last month. Almost all of the fat was gone, leaving only a thin layer covering his muscular frame.

His physique looked hard. His muscles were compact and wiry rather than big and swollen like a body builders. He thought he actually might be smaller now compared to when he worked out at the gym.

Of course he knew that an explosive power was contained in these muscles, and that they were so dense that maybe not even a bullet would penetrate them by now. All over his body were scars of varying size and severity. His tactic of boosting his vitality and taking blows for landing killing strikes had been effective, but it had left an undeniable mark.

He looked down on his rough and calloused hands. It was hard to believe what these hands had done the last weeks. Once he had actually ripped the jaws of a Gwyllgi straight apart when he had dropped his hatchet.

Zac sighed and put on one of his last whole t-shirts and undergarments. He didnt want to use his rags together with his new gear.

Unfortunately the chest pieces of both the males leather armors had been blasted to shreds so he could only put on the females armor. He didnt worry about it too much though, as he had a strong suspicion that there would be many more demons in the woods that could supply new gear.

To get adjusted to his new weapon he dragged over a thick log. He reactivated his gravity array, and started cutting the log into firewood, working out and working on his quest simultaneously. It was already late, and he would not go out hunting anymore today. As he was methodically swinging his axe a trace of anticipation could be seen on his face.

For the first time since the world changed, he looked forward to go out and test his might.

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