The smell of damp earth and the faint scent of something floral assaulted Rex's nostrils as he groggily woke up. The encounter with the Humanoid Tortoise had exhausted his very being, leaving him with a lingering sense of dread that was beginning to take hold.
Quickly shoving the dreadful thoughts out of his mind, his arms shot upward, stretching towards the dark obsidian roof of the passage. The action eased the tension that the dread had brought to his being.
As his mind became progressively lucid, he immediately brought up his status screen. Before he had fallen into slumber, he had been assaulted with the announcements of an increase in Level, a thought that filled him with euphoria.
His status screen popped up:
NAME: Rex Axel
AUTHORITY LEVEL: Cosmic Citizen
LEVEL: 3 [100 EXP to Lvl 4]
RANK: F [15lvls till Rank up ]
AFFILIATION: Earthling
TITLE: OVERLORD ACOLYTE
SKILL: - - - -
STATUS
HP: 15 ×2 [30/30]
STRENGTH: /7×2/ 14 (+2)
VITALITY: /6×2/ 12 (+2)
SPEED: /8×2/ 16 (+2)
INTELIGENCE: /7×2/ 14 (+2)
WILL: /4×2/ 8 (+1)
INSTINCT: /7×2/ (+1)
DISRUPTION VALUE: 100%
EQUIPMENT
Overlord Body Set [GRADE E].
SET ATRIBUTE: x2 to all stats.
He had leveled up thrice.
The humanoid tortoise had increased his level by three.
As he ogled the new changes he was seeing in his attributes, he noticed some bright purple dots pulsing at the edge of his vision. As his eyes darted towards the pulses, they expanded, displaying past notifications that he had not attended to.
"Lvl 13 NEO-LIFE TORTOISE SLAIN"
The first of the notifications read, announcing the name of the foe he had just vanquished.
With brimming curiosity, Rex focused on the notification, expanding it. An action done with the intention of better understanding his foe, the "Brutal Humanoid Tortoise" that had almost ended his existence.
It read:
"The verdant guardians, the Neo-Tribe, care takers of the Sanlet-Forest, with wisdom rooted in the Eldergrove's secrets. But *******, a darkness that chills the very bark of the trees, claimed them, leaving only empty husks, their purpose gone, their legacy a whisper of the wind. Their spirits lost, their link to the Eldergrove broken, The ******lord granted them a cruel gift, the very last merciful act he performed for them. The gift, A purpose, only served through death, *****************"
*****:REDACTED INFORMATION, INSUFFICENT PLAYER AUTHORITY
Rex glanced through the details, completely undisturbed about the redacted information.
Cosmic Ascendance restricted information behind authority levels, and it wasn't the only thing that was restricted. Some services could only be accessed with a certain level of authority; it wasn't something he designated as something that should be of bother to him at the moment.
But the description of the entity as mere "Husks" made him wonder how terrifying it must have been as "not-husk."
"Neo-life tortoise," he whispered. "More like Spiteful Tortoise," he thought, as he was reminded of his ordeal with the creature.
Focusing on the second notification, it expanded:
"1 STAT POINT AWARDED FOR DEFEATING FOE 10 LEVELS ABOVE PLAYER"
"TOTAL STAT POINTS 9+1"
"SPECIAL PHYSIQUE DETECTED!"
"INITIATING AUTOMATIC STAT POINT DISTRIBUTION"
"Ahhh!!!" Rex's mouth hung slightly open as it just came to his mind that he was meant to allocate his points himself, but he had awoken to an already-disbursed stat points.
Gliding down his thumb across his index finger, he pulled down his status screen, taking a glance at the changes in his stats.
STATUS
HP: 15 ×2 [30/30] (+10HP)
STRENGTH: /7×2/ 14 (+2)
VITALITY: /6×2/ 12 (+2)
SPEED: /8×2/ 16 (+2)
INTELIGENCE: /7×2/ 14 (+2)
WILL: /4×2/ 8 (+1)
INSTINCT: /7×2/ (+1)
DISRUPTION VALUE: 100%
His HP was no longer a measly 10; it had tripled. The development splurged his being with confidence. He noted that all of his stats had been increased by 2 points, apart from
"WILL and INSTINCT."
"Shrink!!"
He dragged himself closer to the wall to relax his back, as he began to replay the last few incidents before he had fallen asleep.
The Neo-Life Tortoise had made quick work of him, greatly wiping off his health. He had only narrowly survived by gambling with the Skewer.
Positioning himself and taking an attack from the Tortoise, employing the force of the attack to get himself flying through the Skewer, and watching as the attacking creature fell prey to the trap because of its forward momentum, a product of its "Dash and punch".
Recalling the set of high-octane events filled Rex with excitement, but he felt he needed to chill a bit.
With a gesture, he brought up the player interface, navigating to the Log Off Space.
The Red blinking interface of the Log off button was absent, replaced by a greyish hue.
He could not log out at the moment. "I wanted it to be exciting, but this is just so very intense," Rex thought, as he slowly exhaled, calming his nerves. He had been expecting that development. According to the guide by "Big Fish," it often happened once players were in an active mission or time-related quest. It also defined a trick that could be used to avoid this, which was the player's death.
Rex rolled his eyes as the thought came to mind; he definitely couldn't afford that.
Accepting the reality of the development, Rex dragged himself into Standing.
He had survived the onslaught of the spiteful tortoise, and his base stats had been increased. When combined with the Overlord Set Attribute, his base stats were now very close to that of a Lvl 15 player.
This brought his base stats to the benchmark of the ruin requirements. To him, the one thing it signified was that he was no longer a bug that could be easily squashed at the behest of the occupants of the ruin.
"Tap, Tap."
Rex slowly made his way to a greenish orb that lay close to him. The orb had been dropped by the Lvl 14 Neo-Life Tortoise as it disintegrated.
Picking up the greenish orb, Rex could feel his heartbeat quicken with excitement. He was familiar with this, often dropped by origin monsters, containing skill fragments of the slain monster.
As the greenish orb, as large as a bowling ball, rested in his two palms, radiating a warm pulse in his hands, he saw a pop-up appear in his POV:
Understanding his plight, Rex did not hesitate to choose the first option, He needed the strength it offered him. As he did so, the glow of the orb dimmed as mist from the orb traveled into his palm as the orb disintegrated.
DISRUPTION RATE 100%
SKILL OBTAINED: HARDEN
Seeing the familiar unknown attribute pop up, Rex focused on it, expanding it to find out what information was recorded about it, suppressing the desire to immediately check out his new skill.
DISRUPTION RATE 100%:
Ability to obtain Skill from all F-Ranked Orb: 100%
Obtain Skill from all E- Ranked Orb: 200%
Obtain Skill from all D- Ranked Orb: 300%
Authority Level Insufficient for further description
What!!!
Rex couldn't resist a shout.
In Cosmic Ascendance, killing origin creatures often offered two things:
The first was cosmic points, which could be used to increase players Level, and the second was monster orbs.
Based on "Big-Fish's" guide, "monster orbs had several uses, but the most important to him at the moment, was that it contained the monster's skill"
Players could absorb this skill by absorbing these monster orbs.
Based on players compatibility with the monster's skill, players could need as much as 20 orbs of a similar monster type to fully activate the skill, or as little as 1 orb if they had a high enough compatibility rate with the skill.
Like players with the marksman attribute could easily absorb skill from monsters that had improved sight, needing very few orbs to obtain the skill. A tank class player will probably need to absorb several more amount of this monster orb to obtain this ability.
But with his 100% Disruption rate, he could absorb skills from all Origin Creatures and would only need an orb of a monster of similar class to obtain a skill from that monster.
"Nothing wrong with been a Skill Baron," Rex spoke out loud, as he was brimming with smiles and excitement; he could already feel his goals within reach with this ability. As long as he survived the ruin, this ability alone would allow him to quickly ascend Cosmic Ascendance.
With evident reluctance on his face, he disengaged this series of thought. He could see the hourglass that represented his remaining quest time slowly dropping. He needed to complete his upgrade analysis, so he could continue his quest.
He focused on his newly acquired skill,
"HARDEN"
The one thing, that could drastically reduce the difficulty of conquering this ruin.