5 Chapter 5: Black Panther

Lucas found himself barreling towards his hideout in the apartment complex but found the panther easily gaining ground.

'System how much stamina do I have left?!'

<20 stamina remaining.>

'Maybe I can try to tango with this panther?' Lucas thought to himself as he abruptly stopped and swung behind him as hard as possible.

'Clank!' A metallic sound echoed out as the creatures' thick skull took a heavy beating as the bat struck its head.

Damn even sparks shined as the metal barbs of the bat tried to cut into the panther.

'TOO STRONG!' Lucas thought as he saw the lack of damage the panther took.

But this little stunt was just enough time for the panther to retaliate and it swung its paw outwards towards Lucas and landed a sickening swipe, its claws digging deep into his flesh.

"Fuck!" Lucas shouted out in pain as the creature left a heavy gash into the side of his chest.

And as the prompt rang through his ears he noticed that the wound wasn't bleeding like you would expect it to but instead was healing at a steady rate.

'Endurance really does pay off in the long run!' Lucas thought as he turned around and began to run as fast as possible with the panther tailing not far behind.

'Think Lucas Think!' Lucas shouted at himself mentally and then something dawned on him.

He looked at the car where he had a battle with the vulture and noticed heavy puncture marks on the hood where the engine was.

Lucas pivoted and began sprinting towards the car as an idea slowly formed inside his little head.

The panther managed to get one more good swipe in before they managed to reach the car but as soon as they reached the car Lucas gave up on dodging and instead focused on brutally striking the car where the fuel tank was and surely enough gas came leaking out.

Another strike to the leg and Lucas felt his maneuverability go down a huge level.

Lucas quickly turned around and instead of dodging like he usually would have done he struck out and hit the beast in the head as hard as possible and with that the sparks flew and with that... EXPLOSION!

A mighty blast echoed through the surroundings as the car combusted into flames from these strange mystical sparks that seemed different than typical fire.

Flames covered the bodies of the panther and Lucas.

"Holy Shit!" Lucas shouted as he felt the full brunt of the explosion and the flames begin to lick his body.

<<Fire resist> skill has been made available. Learn?>

"YES!" Lucas shouted as the skills description was brushed off by him.

Immediately the flames cooled down slightly yet they still gnawed on him like a wolf.

"Why the fuck not!" Lucas screamed in his mind as the pain started to kick into second gear.

"Wait what?" Lucas thought as the fire instantly was put off around him leaving him untouched.

"Put them all into endurance!" Lucas said as the pain kicked in once more.

Instantly the pain was quenched and Lucas felt like he was mostly fine.

'Is this just a tournament for aliens to watch or something?' Lucas thought as he moved to his shelter quickly. After some climbing up flights of stairs, he rested in his room while downing a bottle of water and eating a can of food.

"Beans sure do hit the spot after getting your ass kicked and almost dying.

'Show me any notifications I have, system.'

<User has leveled up the <basic club proficiency> to level 3>

<User has leveled <Dodge> to level 2>

'Nice. Show me the new skill.'

---

<Adaption: Tier: 0 / LV: 1 / Rarity: Rare>: Requirement: Have three statuses attempt to impair you. Endurance must be 20 or higher.

You can adapt to a situation at a cost. You gain double your current resistance towards negative statuses. Using this skill costs a massive amount of stamina per minute of use.

---

"Thanks to you friend, I survived. Looks like you will be staying around till the end..." Lucas said sentimentally as he stared at the first active skill that he had learned that was in his main class.

'It seems fairly powerful if it can just put out fires and the such.' Lucas thought as he remembered the way the flames just simply dispersed.

'Now, show me this tournament tab.' Lucas thought as he had a genuine interest in the idea of a tournament.

---

<Current Task>: Level a single stat as high as possible in an unknown period of time.

<Current placement>: 87th place.

<Current Reward>: 20 stat points.

<Current Top User>: Ethan Grey <The Player>

---

"Interesting," Lucas exclaimed "It seems as if this tournament can be truly beneficial for me..."

"Now, time to go loot the corpse of that panther." Lucas thought as he finished his hour-long rest and began his way down the stairs towards the street.

After reaching the street he approached the corpse of the black panther that was truly burnt but found that most of the bones were still intact as well as its eyes.

After carefully inspecting everything on the body he got a few descriptions from the system of what he was looking at.

'Looks like they all hold some interesting capabilities. I will have to take them all but the bones way a ton.' Lucas thought.

'I suppose I could just drop them if I run into anything along the way,'

After an uneventful trip, however, Lucas found himself in his room looking through any equipment he could find on the first floor which sadly wasn't much.

"Now, what to do with this lovely haul of mine..." Lucas said aloud as he looked at the heap of materials in front of him. He had some spare scrap iron, a pair of sunglasses, some old tattered cloth, and finally some electronics he managed to get out of some of the machines. He was no technical expert when it came to electronics but he knew the basics.

'I'm honestly interested in these eyes I picked up' Lucas thought as he inspected the eyeballs of the panther.

They were rather bloody, with dark ooze surrounding the back of them and a small tendon connected to the back of them. They looked especially scary as the room darkened from the setting sun and the lack of electronic lights in the room.

'I guess I can afford to waste some stamina on using <Fortify> on them...' Lucas thought before making up his mind and using the skill on them.

The eyes that were previously Gorey in nature had turned into beautiful gemstones the same size as the eyes from before. They reflected the very little light in the room and made twilight-like energy fill the black gem.

'It's so pretty...' Lucas thought as he found himself being enthralled by the nature of the gem but was soon snapped out of his reverie as a description appeared in front of him.

'Hmm... It doesn't seem to give an outright rarity but instead steps around it by saying it was generally rare. Interesting.'

Lucas looked between the gems and what he had in his pile and decided what he was going to do next.

'Perhaps I could attach them with some electronics and see what that does... Or attach them to some scrap metal and talons to see if that affects how the weapon is created. Or maybe...' Lucas Pondered as he picked up the gems and the pair of sunglasses and slowly removed the lenses and added the gemstones to the glasses.

"Not a great fit but maybe <Fortify> will help me out in that matter."

'Just have to wait a few more hours.'

---

Night had truly come and with it came the horrors of the night. Multiple screeches could be heard through the night outside of the window in Lucas's room. But luckily none seemed to enter the building he had set up a workshop in out of sheer luck or divine intervention.

'System, what is my current stamina?'

'Nice! Time to experiment.'

While he was resting he got a notification from the system displaying the description of the new item he created.

'Time to <Fortify>! System, you know what to do!'

Lucas immediately felt a great drain overcome his body as the glasses in front of him morphed strangely as if possessed by some strange energy.

<User has leveled up the <Improved Fortify> Skill to level 2!>

"Holy shit that was taxing!" Lucas thought as he looked at the item he had created.

What was sunglasses with effectively gems glued to them had turned into a pair of crystal goggles held by leather straps that looked to be made out of black hide-like material.

"But damn is this looking good," Lucas said out loud as he let out a low whistle and inspected the pair of goggles.

The goggles, on further inspection, had a way to take the lenses out and put them to the side of the straps in a protective small hidden pocket.

<Ding?~ User is the first User to craft a Mythical Item. The user has been awarded the title <Forge's Heir>. Please use this power responsibly.>

<<Please name your creation.> Condition: Impecible / Rarity: Mythical>

"A name again? And what's with this new title... Now that I think about it didn't the number one player had a title called <Player>."

Lucas had read a lot of books when he was younger (And smarter) and the only thing that really stuck with him was the wonder of mystery and fantasy. He read a lot of literature but most of it was mythology-based or fiction-based. A way to escape from the world, to say the least. But some of this mythological reading had rubbed off on him. And as such he pondered on the past and wondered what would fit the goggles in front of him.

"I name you <Sight of Nyx>!" He said with a grin on his face. It was a mythical object and required a name of direct proportion.

He waited for the ding to appear and sat silently as he looked at the goggles that seemed to shine in the light of the moon. But suddenly something broke the silence...

__________

___I_________I____

I---___---I

I_______I

(A/N: Clifff hanger man... Very sad.)

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