30 Chapter 30: Hunting and Heading Towards The Desert

Lucas turned his eyes towards Lina and noticed her resting in the corner silently. Her body was slumped over and if Lucas didn't know better he would have thought that she was dead.

Lucas tore out a sheet of paper out of his notebook and wrote a goodbye letter explaining where he was heading. He was about to go on a little venture into the desert and it might be dangerous but he didn't want Lina to know that. So instead of telling her the truth he simply said he was seeking help at the hospital, which Lina knew no one could hold a candle to him there.

Lucas held out Indissolubilis and prayed gently to whatever god may be left watching over him before activating <The Hammer of The gods> once more but instead of targeting a large radius he chose to instead focus on the Laundry Mat they called home.

'Hopefully limiting the area in which I use the skill on it will increase the effectiveness of it,' Lucas thought before slamming down his bat into the center of the room causing a shockwave to reverberate throughout the building.

<The skill <The Hammer of The gods> Has effectively been used on the current location. What effect would you like to focus on?>

'Nice! It lets me choose the effect when not targeting a large area.' Lucas thought while a wave of dizziness overtook him.

'Seems like it still takes a lot of stamina to keep it up though,'

Lucas bent over and heaved for air while thinking of what to increase.

'Increase Defense as the Main focus and Increase comfortability as the second.' Lucas said to the system gently after recovering some of his stamina back.

---

<Effects:>

Defensive:

-BulletProof glass

-Triple locked doors

-Reinforced walls and doors

-Increased stability

Living Quality:

Running water

Beds added

Electricity added

---

Lucas looked at the list and seemed baffled. After a few seconds the lights in the room lit up and he could hear the thrum of what sounded like a generator permeate throughout the room.

'Did it somehow add a generator into the building?' Lucas asked himself as he explored the building only to come up empty.

The style of the building had changed from a stucco grey color to a reflective black surface. The beds that were added seemed to be military cots with no pillows or blankets but instead had a simple mattress on them. There were a total of 4 beds, two sets of bunk beds to be precise.

The glass in the main room had turned from standard glass to a black tinted glass that looked more modern.

'How the hell does this skill work?' Lucas thought to himself as he looked at the changes to the building.

Lucas waited awhile, trying to regenerate his stamina, before heading out. It was a long journey and along the way, he managed to document most of what he witnessed along the way.

He found that the majority of the city was filled with smaller beasts that seemed rather tame than before but still wild compared to the typical creature.

He left most of them alone as they seemed to steer clear of him instinctually.

He met no people along the way but he knew that he had come close due to the map, but he deliberately made his path wind around theirs as to not come in contact with them.

Lucas felt rather calm about the situation but after some observation of the Map, Lucas noticed something odd about where he was going.

There were thousands of humans and numerous other races holed up in what looked to be a compound in the middle of the desert.

'Hmm... This could be dangerous,' Lucas noticed.

After Lucas had regained some more stamina he decided he should hunt a monster to see what their strengths were like and hopefully get some materials to make another piece of gear.

Lucas quickly tapped on the map and limited it to Monsters only and found that the nearest one was actually a little way into the desert where he was headed.

Lucas nodded and clicked on Mana fluctuation and noticed that the area seemed to be exceptionally turbid. It would twist and turn in a matter like a storm but seemed to be consistent around the blip on the map.

Lucas shook his head in worry before heading towards the blip anyways.

'I have to get stronger,'

---

After a long time of walking, Lucas noticed that he wasn't sweating. He remembered hearing that it was a sign of severe dehydration and heatstroke so, for a moment, he was worried. But then he realized that the sun didn't seem to affect him much at all.

'Perhaps it has to do with that <Dragon Skin> skill...' Lucas thought before shrugging it off.

Lucas continued his trip and quickly noticed that he had entered what looked to be an incredibly large construction site. It was filled with sand and seemed to be some sort of half desert/man-made desert.

Lucas shrugged before continuing forward but a little way through he noticed that the wind was picking up pace and the sand had begun to move in waves with the rising wind, almost as if it had come alive.

He checked the map quickly and realized that the blip was only a little ways away from him.

He squinted into the distance and saw, what looked to be, a small glowing ball of orange light.

"What in the-" Lucas started but couldn't continue as the wind picked up and lifted him up off the ground.

"What?!" Lucas yelled as the sand seemed to be lifting him up with the wind.

The ball grew in size and seemed to be some sort of whirlwind.

Lucas focused on it, struggling through the amount of sand that was buffeting his eyes, and tried to get a name tag on it.

<<Name>: Magnus. <Levels>: Tier: 2: <Sand Elemental/Wind Elemental LV:67> <Age: 42 Years old>>

"What the hell is an elemental?!"

Lucas grabbed his bat and immediately felt his skin harden and his body grow more durable as he resisted the wind much easier than before.

'The bat's increase in defense is really worth it overall,'

Magnus saw the human that had invaded its territory and felt anger well up within it as the storm continued to pick up.

'It will be impossible to reach him if the storm keeps on getting worse...' Lucas thought while thinking about what to do.

Lucas thought about throwing his bat and using his mind to guide it but it was risky seeing as the storm was about to send him flying let alone a metal bat.

Lucas focused his mind on his body and tried to make a field of mental energy around it and he immediately felt his mind leave his body.

It was a similar feeling as to when he controlled his bat but different at the same time. It felt as if he was stretching his mind around himself and pushing outward. Almost as if he was holding his breath and flexing at the same time.

It was almost suffocating how hard it was to do but after he got a notification from the system he knew he had accomplished something.

< Common skill <Basic Mental Barrier>: Tier 0 / LV: 1 / Rarity: Common> learned! >

After learning the skill he immediately felt a weight being lifted off of his chest as the system took over partially.

Lucas felt the sand almost become obsolete and in response, he activated <sprint> and dashed forward as fast as possible. He immediately felt a boost of speed as he whipped forward like a bullet and struck at the strange ball-like creature with all of his might, seemingly in an attempt to get a home run.

He felt his bat connect with the orb and at that moment he felt an overwhelming amount of energy empower him. His bat would have certainly been cracked if it was not indestructible and he would have too if he had not had his bat with him.

<User has been death-cursed! The user has reached zero hitpoints! The User has used his <Reactive Ability: Unbreakable Will> and has returned to 50% health and has regained all stamina.>

"Holy shit!" Lucas shouted before the orb cracked into pieces in front of him. The winds quickly disappeared and all that was left of the elemental was a single strange glowing shard of glass embedded into the ground.

Lucas quickly sat down and released a heavy breath as he felt his heart race from coming so close to death.

He was not physically exhausted persay... but more mentally exhausted than anything.

Lucas realized he had used one of his few lifelines.

'I can't be so reckless!' He chastised himself.

'You may be the most stat roided up human on the planet but you are not the strongest creature there is! That thing was tier 2 and you almost died fighting it!' Lucas yelled at himself as he realized how stupid he was.

'I wouldn't have questioned doing this in the past... Perhaps this increase in my intelligence has had some benefits,'

Lucas approached the shard of glass and picked it up to examine it and got a detailed description of the item.

---

<<Name: Shard: Sandstorm> <Rarity: Very Rare>>

<Description>: This is a shard of the world... It holds elemental power that is purer than most. This item can be used by master craftsmen to create earth/wind-based elemental items such as blinding wind-striped arrows or sandstorm boots.

---

'Interesting... I should find something worth combining it with before I use it. Perhaps hunt down another monster...'

'No dummy! Let's not almost get killed again!' Lucas's voice of reason shouted at him and this time he listened.

"It's time to find this compound," Lucas said aloud before continuing through the desert passively regenerating the damage dealt to him in about 30 minutes.

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