Chương 40: High Human's Growth

With one last crushed head, the final orc collapses. I flop onto my bottom and lie on the ground, panting heavily. Had me thinking they had honor for a second. My arm goes up, blocking the sunlight and emphasizing the severe burns where the lightning entered and left several times. I've burned myself on the stove in my house once or twice, along with a few times I touched hot pans out of the oven. It's easy to see why people say burning to death is one of the worst ways to go. Thank you, control skill.

Without the ability to ignore pain, I would probably be rushing around, searching for any source of water to soothe the burns. After catching my breath, I spring to my feet. A blue window expands. [Vitality: 42 > 48] [Strength: 30 > 32] [Agility: 33 > 35] [Endurance: 32 > 34] [Fortitude: 37 > 46] [Intelligence: 24 > 26] [Wisdom: 37 > 41] [Perception: 44] [Unassigned: 1]"Sheesh!" How much of an increase is that? I add all the increases up. My jaw hangs open at the change.

"Twenty-six!?"

"Twenty-six every single level!?" I turn to a nearby corpse.

"Can you believe this!?" The orc's crushed head slowly leaks blood, while its unfocused eye stares into the sky. I grimace and look back at the status. That was funnier in my head. Still, from seven stats every level to twenty-six. Having two sources of stat gain, along with them both being epic and legendary, really packs a punch. The important question is, where should I put my very last unassigned point? Neither my class nor my species gives me any since I evolved.

The very last decision I will make when it comes to my stats for the foreseeable future. Even though it's a minimal increase, I toss the free point into wisdom. Maybe I'll finally get enough mana to figure out what this earring does. Based on how many rewards went into it, it's probably the most valuable thing I own. The screen disappears as I greedily rub my hands together. A run around the enclosure gets me thirteen bags of jerky and one leather pouch of the same strange leg of bird meat.

My gaze shifts to the wood huts and log house. With cheerful steps, I make my way towards the first hut. Passing through the cloth covering, I make it inside. It's pitiful. Two patchwork sheets sit messily over two piles of straw. But my eye is pulled to the back of the hut, where a single wooden chest sits. Not lined with metal, sadly. But it does come up to my knees, which is a good bit of insight into its value. After flipping it open and finding it empty, I move on to the next hut.

Chime Chime Chime Chime Chime Chime I exit the sixth hut with a smile. The insides of all of them were the same. Exactly the same. Throw me into a 3D editor, and I could craft something better than the system. Assuming the system even created this place. I'm pretty sure it did. I don't think any living being could make something so generic and boring. My hand reaches out and pulls open the creaky wooden door. The interior of the cabin is dark, but enough light creeps through the gaps in the logs to see.

Squinting my eye, I spot the reward I was searching for. With a wide grin, I pull the mattress straight off the wooden bedframe.

"Feathers!?" I gasp. Now this is an upgrade. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. With one foot, I kick the thigh-high chest in the corner open. Chime With a wide, satisfied smile, I walk back out of the cabin with the mattress in hand. I walk to the gate, wondering how to get out. The giant wooden doors are taller than the gate and look substantially heavy. A single wooden plank keeps the thing shut.

Setting down my new mace and mattress, I heave the plank off. I pull hard, and the massive door swings open quite easily. The unexpected motion causes me to stumble backward.

"Hahaha!" After a quick set of flexing and admiring myself, I continue moving. The blue pane hovers in front of me while I walk. [You have slain Orc(lv. 12) - (lv. 14) x12] [You have slain Charged Orc(lv. 11)] [Partial experience granted x26] [Companionship Pact Leader(lv. 15) > (lv. 16)] [(II) High Human(lv. 0) > (lv. 1)] [Empower Suggest Companion(lv. 5) > (lv. 6)] [One Mind/Two Bodies(lv. 0) > (lv. 1)] [You have discovered a reward x7] [Accept(7) / Bank / Consolidate] Definitely my largest-scale battle so far.

One versus thirteen, and I still came out on top. The thought brings a smile to my face. Dang, I'm strong. So, level increases as normal for my class, but my species ranks up and starts anew. Strange. Why not have them both reset or both continue? My thoughts drift as I make my way back to the intermission room. One Mind/Two Bodies is insanely powerful. It works especially well with the rest of my build and skills. The best part of it is being able to split my mind and have them do other tasks.

If I didn't have it remove the invasive mana from the orc while I was running, I would have been paralyzed again. I'm not sure what kind of skills other people are getting, but I'm sure they're a little more exciting. Looking at my status again, I see that I have three body augmentation skills, two skills to better control my body, one utility skill, and one healing skill. I only have a single skill that's related to combat. That being danger sense. Even then, it's more of a passive skill than an active one.

I hope I can get at least one skill that makes me jump higher or hit harder. Being able to use that locking ability that other enemies had on their weapons would be amazing. Fireball, shield bash, powerful swing, I'll take any of it. I can't complain about what I have right now, though. Being able to obliterate enemies that are roughly the same level as me with one swing is extremely satisfying. I pull the massive mace off my shoulder and inspect it.

[A large two-handed metal mace] Honestly, that's more than I expected. The sledgehammer I used at home when working in the yard was only three feet long. This thing is almost twice that length, coming up to my chest when standing straight. It was certainly made for a system-enhanced individual, as it's quite heavy. With my perfect body and the impeccable control from my skills, it's child's play to use it well.

It's easy to complain about not having any active skills, but being able to move like an acrobat and jump double my height makes up for it. How am I able to jump so high, anyway? My strength is only thirty. I bet bodybuilders could start the tutorial at maybe seventeen or eighteen. Mine isn't that much higher, so what gives? Does optimized anatomy and my species' evolution make that much of a difference? I stop mid-step and hold my arm out.

The veins that usually travel right under the skin aren't visible, replaced by perfectly sculpted muscles. It's beautiful the way each strand seamlessly curves into the next. The design is amazing enough that it seems almost inhuman. The blocky imperfections that spoke of thousands of years of evolution are nowhere to be seen. It looks more like a modern jet, engineered specifically to remove any weaknesses to push maximum efficiency. My head shakes and I continue moving.

I can feel my narcissism increasing every second I look at my body. Forget race discrimination, if there was a society that had both humans and high humans… The gap between rarity of ordinary humans' species and legendary High Humans would probably lead to segregation. They're just better in all senses of the word. I pull open the door to the intermission room and make myself comfortable. I rest the mace against the wall by the door, and the mattress goes on top of the old one.

All the food goes in the corner with the bread I looted before. With a sigh, I fall backwards onto my new mattress and wiggle in glee.

"Oh yeah, that's the good stuff." Wonder if I can get a really nice mattress from a reward? What would a mattress made from a hundred consolidated rewards even look like? A few minutes pass as my imagination runs wild. [Health: 710(497)] [Mana: 550(120)] [Stamina: 515(224)] Wow, that orc mage did a lot less damage than I thought. If I hadn't figured out how to get the orc's lightning out of my body, I would have died. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

It would have shocked me repeatedly, re-casting lightning on its arms while I watched, not being able to do anything about it. Might've taken a while, because of my increased fortitude, but it would have eventually worn me down. It would have been way worse if it had attacked my head while I was paralyzed instead of my chest. With my enhanced skeleton and optimized anatomy working together, my ribcage is an impenetrable fortress. Wait a second, how high are my defensive stats?

If someone started with ten of every stat, and had a class specifically for vitality and fortitude… After a quick bit of math, the total comes up to thirty-two in both, considering they are the same level as me. A hard tank, with no stats placed anywhere else. I glance at my status. [Vitality: 48] [Fortitude: 46] Yeah, I guess that explains it. With the empower effect from control companion active, I don't think there's a single human on earth that has more defensive stats at my level.

Then again, they wouldn't have a species to level up, which would make their progress a lot faster. My vision shuts as I funnel the mana into the healing skill once again. The session is short due to my low mana reserves. When it finishes, I gorge myself on jerky and bread, switching to place my head under the fountain. For a few seconds, I contemplate claiming my reward, but the desperate need for a weapon has been filled thanks to a certain orc mage's donation.

Deep inside, I still wish for an amazing pair of gauntlets that will never break. No weapon has the same level of destruction and defense while also withstanding my strength. Speaking of, isn't my fortitude now far outpacing my strength? My lips curl up into a maniacal grin. I wonder what an overclocked punch looks like now? I lay my head back on the mattress, full of energy and eagerness to fight again. Still, I need to rest in order to finally reach the forbidden full health bar.

Seriously, I went exactly three fights in the dungeon until I earned my first injury. Ever since then, I haven't touched full health, even with every single drop of mana being funnelled through my healing skill. My head rests against the mattress, but I know I'll never be able to fall asleep like this.

"Kevin, sleep for eight hours" I don't fight the command as it drags my eyelids closed. Dreams of punching trees down with a single blow fill my head as I'm slowly dragged into unconsciousness.