God's Love

[To be immortal... sounds like something you normally read about in Asian Webnovels...

Alright, Sherlock, I need to confirm something.

If my personal understanding of a skill exceeds a certain threshold then the related skill will evolve to the next skill in it's evolution? And when the skill itself evolves, The Path consolidates my understanding of whatever it is that the skill covers or does?

What do skill tiers even do then? And how many tiers are there for a skill?]

{Your first conjecture is correct. Skill tiers however, are only meant to increase the potency of the current skill's abilities. As skills themselves evolve, their uses evolve with them. As for how many tiers there are, their are three. Normal, Rare, and Extraordinary. The tiers quantify your understanding of the skill itself based on the tasks completed to evolve it.}

[So basically it's a whole lot of different ways to quantify my growth in a specific area. Makes sense. Guess it's not so complicated... still kind of annoying to think of though. Guess I just need to focus on my own personal growth and my skills will follow.

Still don't really know how I learn to control time on my own though.. Guess we'll work on that another time.

Lets finish evolving these skills and speed up the pace so we can reach the medical center before the end of the day!]

{Congratulations, Skill: Basic Swordsmanship has evolved from Skill Tier: Normal to Skill Tier: Rare. Strength of the skill has increased.

Skill: Basic Swordsmanship

Skill Type: Passive

Skill Tier: Rare

Skill Description: Allows the users understanding of swordsmanship to increase slightly. While using swords, the users damage is increased by 25%. Percentage of damage increase will increase with each tier.

Requirements for evolution to Skill Tier: Extraordinary - Kill Enemies with any type of sword (0/1000)}

[Perfect! All set. Now I just have to kill 3 zombies with my eyes closed and we can increase Overclocked Perception. We can easily do that in the next 5 minutes.]

"Grant, why are you grinning like you just discovered something fascinating?"

Grant was snapped out of his reverie hearing Ethan's voice. He had forgotten where he was for a moment.

Although he had been lost in his thoughts, he never let his guard down to any potential dangers, but he still lost control of his emotions for a second.

While Grant had been talking to Sherlock in his mind and evolving his skill tiers, they had progressed about a mile up the road.

So far they had only run into lower leveled monsters, which surprised Grant because it didn't make sense for monsters to still be so weak at this point but he just chalked it up to the fact the monsters hadn't found any prey of their own to level up.

Since the monsters had been low level, Ethan had been the one to dispatch them with his Cross style weapon.

Ethan had been using the weapon for quite awhile now and he was surprised that he hadn't outgrown it yet. He knew that the weapon clearly wasn't a normal weapon, because it was unlikely someone would put that much effort into such a unique weapon for it to end up being weak.

"Ethan, let me see your cross real quick. I want to check it out."

At first Ethan was reluctant to hand it over but he relinquished in the end and passed the cross over to Grant.

{Weapon: Cross

Name: God's Love

Grade: Epic

A cross shaped weapon that delivers God's love to the wielders' enemies. Is shaped like a cross with an edge shaved down to provide the ultimate form of love. Is capable of piercing the skin of any enemy aligned with Evil. Strength +50, Health +50, and Stamina +50}

"What the fuck Ethan! This weapon is insane! It has no level or tier restrictions on the damage and allows you to pierce all Evil aligned monsters! And it doesn't even list a restriction for that either!

If you weren't a good friend of mine, I would consider robbing you of this right now!"

While complaining at how overpowered the cross was, Grant reluctantly passed it back to Ethan. He had never been one to believe in God, but if faith in Him would allow Grant to receive a weapon as overpower as that, he wouldn't mind throwing a few hail marry's now and then!

Ethan seemed to blush for a second before looking depressed again.

"As sad as I am to admit this, this weapon has been the only thing that has kept me from completely abandoning my faith. I feel like this weapon was given to me by The Path as some sort of proof that God does in fact exist. Or at least some version of Him.

Obviously I don't have any evidence to support that, I just get the feeling that's what it means."

That was an intriguing idea, and based on what Grant was learning about The Path from his own experiences, the idea that maybe The Path was testing Ethan in a sense was true.

As they walked and murdered anything in sight, Grant and Ethan talked about the state of things in the world and how they were going to deal with it.

Obviously, most of what they talked about was purely conjecture on Ethan's part but Grant would subtly share some of the information he had discovered through Spruce Springtree and Skit. It was his way of slowly but surely getting Ethan to consider the prospect of fighting a war in the future.

Of course, Ethan's response was always negative. About how, if God really did exist, he wouldn't let something like that. If God was real, then people wouldn't be suffering like they were, and so on.

The more Ethan talked about his loss of faith, the more Grant became annoyed. Not because he was complaining about the whole situation too much or anything, but because he seemed to abandon a life-long commitment because he hit one snag in the road.

Grant couldn't help but think back on the people of the world who had faced adversities their entire lives but never lost their faith.

"Ethan, let me ask you a question, and please don't take this personally. Was your faith in God really that weak? How have you not considered that this whole thing my be some test by God?

I don't know shit about the bible and it's teachings, but what I do know is, that people's faith is tested throughout time and most of them do not abandon it no matter what. How can your commitment be so weak?"

At first, Ethan looked pissed that Grant was questioning his commitment and resolve, but then he just started to look depressed again.

"Maybe you're right.. was I ever truly committed to my faith or was it just something I preached but never practiced? At least not in a true sense."

"Oh my god man! Snap the fuck out of it! Either commit to it or give up on it! I watched a lady move past the loss of the love of her life in less than a week! It's been nearly three weeks since you lost your friends and you're still moping around!

Look around you! The world is fucked. I'm betting for some people, faith is the only thing that gets them out of bed in the morning!

Plus, I will bet their are people in situations that they have no control over and are being taken advantage of in different ways that are praying for salvation.

Yet you are free to make your own choices, move about at your own whim, and you're not some scrawny weak fool anymore.

You have taken lives and defended others, maybe it was God who put you theere to save those people?! Who are you to question it!"

Attracted by the commotion and all of the shouting, monsters started to appear in large quantities which only seemed to fuel Grant's frustration even more. Their were even two newly minted Enlightened Tier monsters in one of the packs.

Grant just roared in frustration as he charged directly at the groups of monsters.

"Perfect timing you little fucks! Get over here! I need to let off some steam!"

For the first three kills, Grant activated his Overclocked Perception and closed his eyes to finish the evolution requirements of the skill before unleashing hell upon any monster that came too close. The monsters that hadn't entered into the Enlightened Tier were slaughtered with a single swing of his sword. The Enlightened Tier monsters on lasted a few more swings before they too fell.

{Congratulations, Skill: Overclocked Perception has evolved from Skill Tier: Normal to Skill Tier: Rare. Strength of the skill has increased.

Skill Type: Passive

Skill Tier: Normal

Skill Description: While in combat, allows the user to focus their perception to an entirely new degree. Overclocked Perception allows the user to pinpoint danger within a 300 foot radius. The skill requires the user to focus to a certain degree to activate.

Requirements for evolution to Skill Tier: Extraordinary - Dodge enemy attacks without taking any damage. (0/500)}

While Grant was venting his frustration, Ethan was just standing in the same spot he had been since the beginning.

This moment would be a turning point for Ethan.

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A/N: I will be adding an auxiliary chapter to make it easier for us to have discussions about upcoming events and potential plot ideas. I will work on setting up a disc if their is enough desire for one! As always, I appreciate all of you for reading the story. Thank you for your support!