Defiance of the Fall

He was somewhat surprised that he hadn’t received any sort of follow-up quest , along the lines of - Kill 100 Demons - . The line behind the title indicated that it should be possible to upgrade it , but he hadn’t been given any indication of how . Zac guessed he had to add it to the ever-increasing list of things he did not know .

After looking over the status page he opened the building interface . There were two things that Zac wanted to build , and they cost 3000 Nexus crystals each .

The first was called a F-Grade Nexus Node] and looked like a large hovering crystal from the description . Its function was to access certain aspects of the System . Nexus Nodes seemed to have more functions depending on how high grade it was , with F being the lowest . The Node was the worst of the bunch in other words . But it gave access to two functions that Zac was extremely interested in . It gave access to the class system , and sold basic skills .

The other was another array , namely the F-Grade Small Scale Gravity Array] . This was an array meant for strengthening oneself as he saw it . The subject of training was something he had mulled over from the start . Even before allocating the first 30 points he had gotten he had noticed that his stats were skewed .

When he counted backwards from his titles and the points he had allocated he had found out that his base stats differed quite a bit . Before the effect of the system he had 7 strength , 3 dexterity , 4 endurance , 5 vitality , 5 intelligence and 6 wisdom .

He assumed the normal stats were around 1-10 for most humans , as he was somewhat average before the System arrived . He wasn’t particularly smart , and not extremely athletic . He worked out at a gym 3 times a week which would explain the strength . But he was not limber at all , and he rarely did cardio . Therefore he had lower dexterity and endurance . Vitality and intelligence seemed harder to train , as they seemed more of an inborn quality .

Since the stats differed and seemed to be affected by his actions before the System arrived , he assumed that he might be able to improve his base stats from training as well . He probably would not be able to improve infinitely , but every extra stat point counted .

That’s where the gravity array would come in . It would affect the gravity in a zone , and could increase the gravity up to 10 times . At this point he had 46 strength and was likely stronger than any human that had ever lived on earth . Without this kind of array Zac didn’t think he would be able to exhaust himself . He could do push-ups all day without breaking a sweat at the moment .

If he added the array to the camp he could potentially improve multiple stats , at least Strength and Endurance as they seemed most linked with the constitution of his physique .

Unfortunately the descriptions for the buildings were quite short , and both options came with a risk . He had no idea how skills worked and what they would cost . Buying a Nexus Node might be a complete waste of coins at this stage when every advantage was important . On the other hand he didn’t know if the plan for training even worked with the system .

After some hesitation he finally turned his eyes towards the array .

Chapter 17 - Eye of Discernment

Zac sat in front of the camp fire , and with a blank silent stare he slowly rotated a spit placed above it . The suns were setting over his small outpost , and the surroundings had a subdued silence . On the spit was the leg of a rabbit he had caught earlier today . The rabbit had actually grown to the size of a human , so the meat would last for a while .

Tomorrow would mark the 29th day since the world changed . If Hannah or even his family were to see him now they likely would likely barely recognize him .

The once neat beard of his was now an uneven mess . There even was one patch almost completely missing after a Barghest’s claw had cut his face during a particularly intense melee . His hair was even worse , now a mess of uneven cuts . During one of his fights he had gotten hair in his eyes , and the distraction had caused him to almost get disemboweled . He had fought the Gwyllgi half-blinded while using one hand to hold his innards in place . After the fight he had simply taken his hatchet to his head and cut off as much hair as he could without scalping himself .

He had run out of shirts last week , and now used a mix of torn rags to cover himself . Underneath those rags was some makeshift protection he had made from leather he had cured . He had begun by making some bracers for his legs and arms , and a basic heart protector out of the snake skin he had dried over his car . Over time he had found another snake and even a crocodile on a shore , and had turned those into leather as well .