Chapter 28: Testing
Atlas stood on top of his new town wall. It was constructed from an amalgamation of metals, but it simply looked like some common steel wall. Besides it's incredible height, of course. It towered over the rest of his town at a ridiculous 50 feet high, the next tallest building being his town hall, which stood at somewhere between 30 and 40 feet high.
He had chosen quantity in his mana pathway options, doubling his mana, so he was feeling very powerful at the moment with 40,000 mana running through him.
He had looked at all of the weapons in the newly upgraded armory… but he would rather just use his new skills and titles. He also wanted to mainly focus on his new skills to help them level up quickly, with the effect being amplified heavily by Skill Master.
He checked the timer for the next wave to begin. It had two minutes left to go. If Atlas was being honest, he was nervous about this wave. If it was only a little stronger than the wave before, he might have a little bit of trouble, but it would be relatively easy. If the difficulty spiked after fighting the mini-boss? Yeah, he just might be screwed. He severely doubted this would be the case, but it never hurt to be overly cautious.
Atlas brought up the levels of all of his skills, wondering if any of them were close to upgrading.
Ultimate Debuff (Z) to level 2!
Elemental Affinity (SSS) to level 2!
Reaper’s Senses (SS) to level 6!
Death Mist (SS) to level 4!
Consume (SS) to level 5!
Endless Strength (SS) to level 6!
Battle Trance (SS) to level 1!
Runic Armor (SS) to level 1!
Supreme Damage Resistance (SS) to level 1!
Misty Step (SS) to level 1!
Blitz (S) to level 7!
Demonic Claw (S) to level 2!
Lightning Beam (B) to level 4!
Crafting (B) to level 3!
Herbalism (D) to level 4!
Blitz was the closest, with Reaper’s Senses and Endless Strength being the next closest. He probably wasn’t going to get any of them up a rank anytime soon, but in a few days maybe. His leveling of skills had dramatically decreased, and it was really bugging him. All of his newest skill upgrades had been as a reward from the system.
That being said, Skill Master was going to make that a lot less of a problem. He wouldn’t be surprised if he could power level Crafting to S grade if he actually knew what the skill did, besides, you know, letting you craft stuff. He was going to wait to explore that skill until he got out of the grove, which was basically another tutorial but at another level, as it involved both fighting waves of monsters and defending and upgrading your town.
The timer finally went off, and Atlas watched as 3 massive creatures were summoned from who knows where and appeared about a mile away from his wall. He could still scan them from this distance though, and what he saw made him both very interested and more than a little relieved.
Deepwell Titan
Tier: 2 Level 75
Atlas was relieved because they were less than half his level, and interested because of the dramatic increase in strength from the miniboss. They were all 25 levels higher than the snake had been, and there were more of them. Was it because the system had expected players to go through the dungeon before facing the next wave? While it did make sense, he wasn’t sure that a 25 level increase was enough for it to really make much of a difference. He could kill these things with a simple combo of Endless Strength and Blitz, if his instincts were right.
Nevertheless, he summoned Runic Armor, and covered himself with Runes of Defence. They were a basic rune, but he really wanted to get a sense for the maximum defensive capabilities of the armor, so he was going fully into defence, even if that wasn’t the most optimal use of the runes. He would test them all out on a later date, for now, he wanted durability.
He Blitz-ed over to the titans, and they noticed him immediately, slamming down their fists in an attempt to smush him. While normally this attack would never even get close to touching Atlas, he stood still and took the blow, trying to get a feel for his new magical armor.
The fists came down like the hand of god, pure unbridled killing intent flooding in all directions from their fists… and rebounding off of Atlas’s armor with a hollow *clang*! Atlas barely felt the blow, but his armor was warped a little now. He suspected it could only take a few more blows before he would have to unsummon it. He could resummon it immediately in peak condition, but it took a couple seconds of circulating his mana to summon, so it was tricky to do in battle.
Atlas just stood there and let the creatures slam their fists into his armor over and over, trying to infuse mana into his armor to make it more resistant to the attacks slamming into it.
There was no doubt in Atlas’s mind that he wouldn’t have been able to this before gaining his mana pathways, but with them, it was relatively easy. He felt like he was wasting a lot of mana with each subsequent hit, but he was definitely getting better as time went on.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Another neat thing he remembered about Skill Master was the ability to understand other’s skills. As evidenced now.
Fist of Suppression (A-S Tier): Infuse your fist with a tremendous power, slightly scaling with your strength and available mana. It does more damage the weaker your opponent is, but doesn’t get weaker when used on stronger opponents. Strength of opponents is not an opponent's level, but that is taken into account.
It was a neat skill, but he did wonder why he got the full details of the skill, but he wasn’t complaining about it at all. It was very nice to know. He did think that it had something to do with how he was far stronger than the titans, or it could have something to do with the rank of the skill in comparison to the average rank of his skills, or even his highest skill. He did wonder why it showed up as both A and S tier, but thought that it had something to do with how it scaled with strength and available mana. Making it stronger when at full mana and when strength was your main stat.
Overall, Atlas was very happy with Runic Armor. After he started using his mana to empower it, it started taking less and less damage as he got better at using his pathways.
He even got a few very interesting and welcome notifications as the titans continued to futilely smack him.
You have leveled up your skill Runic Armor (SS) to level 1!
You have leveled up your skill Runic Armor (SS) to level 2!
You have leveled up your skill Runic Armor (SS) to level 3!
You have leveled up your skill Runic Armor (SS) to level 4!
You have gained the skill Mana Manipulation (B)!
You have leveled up your skill Runic Armor (SS) to level 5!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 1!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 2!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 3!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 4!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 5!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 6!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 7!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 8!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 9!
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (B) to level 10!
Mana Manipulation (B) -> Mana Manipulation (A)
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (A) to level 1!
…
You have leveled up your skill Mana Manipulation (A) to level 10!
Mana Manipulation (A) -> Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S)
You have leveled up your skill Runic Armor (SS) to level 6!
Atlas was shocked. His skills had upgraded at a ridiculous pace. A skill he had just gotten at B grade was already S grade. Maybe it was going so high because he already had really good mana pathways? It took a second to realize why Runic Armor had grown so much even though it was a high grade skill. Skill Master. The skill made him train his skills 10 times faster, which was huge. What would usually be one level became something like 6, as the needed experience grew with each level, which meant that it didn’t just make one level 10, but it was still insane.
He stayed in the middle of the titans, focusing fully on making sure that less and less damage could get through. His Enhanced Mana Manipulation gained 8 more levels before slowing down, while runic armor got 3 more, which had it hanging on the edge of ranking up, but before either could upgrade, the titans collapsed, completely exhausted. It was actually quite impressive that they had kept at it for as long as they did.
They clearly weren’t the smartest either, as they had just kept smashing their fists into his armor, even though it had been absolutely meaningless. Well, meaningless for them. It had been very beneficial for him.
He killed them all by impaling them with earthen spikes that erupted from the ground. Atlas was surprised, apparently his Enhanced Mana Manipulation also increased the effectiveness of Elemental Affinity, which was very nice and more than a little broken, as it was already a ridiculously powerful skill on its own, adding in the control of his newest skill and the power and control from his mana pathways. It was almost effortless to create large spikes made out of earth that were about half as tall as the titans and slightly smaller than their skulls, which had been brutally impaled.
Surprisingly, he gained a level for killing all of them, even though they were almost 100 levels weaker than him. He also gained a level in Elemental Affinity, which was not too surprising when adding in the insane power of Skill Master.
And just like that, the wave was over. He only had 4 more waves to go, which was both exciting and upsetting for Atlas. Exciting because he was getting close to finally being able to leave this place, and though he wouldn’t call his town boring, it definitely wasn’t very exciting seeing as he was literally the only person in the entire town.
It was also upsetting because he doubted that the final boss would be too much trouble to beat. He brought up his status to check out the new updates.
Atlas Channing
Tier: 2
Level: 162
Class: Reaper
Subclass: Absorber
Mana Pathways: Rare
Mana: 40,824
Life force: 13,530
Stamina: 13,530
Titles: Shadestrider, Skill Master, Boss Slayer, Powerful Soul, Legend of the Tutorial, Sythesiser, Fate breaker.
Skills: Ultimate Debuff (Z), Elemental Affinity (SSS), Death Mist (SS), Consume (SS), Reaper’s Senses (SS), Endless Strength (SS), Battle Trance (SS), Misty Step (SS), Enhanced Damage Resistance (SS), Runic Armor (SS), Blitz (S), Demonic Claw (S), Enhanced Mana Manipulation (S),Crafting (B), Lightning Beam (B) Herbalism (D).
Spells: None
Talent: Z
Potential: Z
Stats:
Endurance: 1353
Constitution: 1353
Strength: 1362
Dexterity: 1362
Wisdom: 1362
Intelligence: 1362
Free points: 2
Unknown to Atlas, the thought of finding his challenges weak had interesting consequences and the systems were shown a rather frightening message. Not frightening in that they were scared, but in that they had no idea that Atlas had made such a grave mistake. He had challenged impossible difficulty, and all who had before him had died. Unlike the other difficulties, the impossible difficulty was different.
It had a Keeper.
Impossible Difficulty Player [Atlas Channing] has challenged the Keeper by finding the difficulty weak. Necessary actions are being taken. Death is a high probability.
All who challenge the Keeper will only find death and despair.
