18 (18) Specialisation

Kraton went to the side quickly after being shooed away, he hid his vial in his large palms, careful to not let anyone see it. Turning his back to the majority of the crowd, Kraton opened his palms and looked at the small vial. It was a small glass vial which had a small, round base which then expanded outwards and then shrunk back inwards with a thin neck. The overall shape was like that of bottle vases, however the craftmanship was exquisite; the contours were smooth and invisible, and although the vial looked delicate, the form was strong and unbreakable. The strange thing was that the vial stayed cool, whilst the insides was half liquid, half vapour and was bubbling at the surface.

Kraton stared intensely at the mysterious vial, well aware of Hato's warning. Thinking about how precious Hato made it seem, he wondered why he would give one to everyone if it was an actual precious substance.

Analysis: Low-grade level serum.

Description: Can be used to increase the consumer's level by one, removes all extra experience. Does not affect user if their level surpasses 24.

Kraton now understood why Hato gave it away so casually, a mere level serum like this gave no benefit to him, but would be very helpful for the Novice bosses in the gathering. The vial was probably given to Hato to give to them by the being who asked Hato to welcome them nicely, therefore Hato didn't dare keep them for his own loyal subordinates.

The best time to use this vial would be at the start of level 24, however Kraton took Hato's warning to his heart and didn't dare hold onto it, lest he get robbed later on.

Opening the vial was easy, and Kraton was about to look inside at the contents to see it more clearly, however a plume of gas threatened to escape the vial. It seemed that the air was a catalyst that increased the temperature, causing more of the liquid to turn into a gas. Kraton quickly poured the contents into his mouth before all of it evaporated away.

*Sizzle* *Cough*

The liquid ran down his throat, however soon after it felt like his throat, body and veins were burning in fire, and then his body temperature dropped drastically, freezing his sweat and hairs, sounds of his bones cracking spread through his body and the pain of the simultaneous heat and freezing cold made double over in pain, coughing out until his throat became hoarse and dry.

'Low quality indeed' Kraton thought to himself, the benefit was only just worth the pain he endured. However, Kraton was also extremely happy and thanked the vial in his heart as it had shot his level up from the bottom of level 9, all the way to level 10. Getting past a major milestone often needed much more experience to break through than the previous levels, and with just a small vial, he had skipped all of that experience, a miracle substance indeed!

In his mind, there were quite a lot of translucent orbs, all of them were green. Kraton instantly knew what these orbs were, they were undistributed attribute points. Previously these green orbs would automatically be distributed evenly through his body, muscles and mind, however now, only a prtion of the orbs were distributed evenly, the rest of them stayed behind for specialised distribution.

Thinking about Hato's evaluation, Kraton spread most of the green orbs to certain muscles, mainly to his legs. The orbs were absorbed in those areas and strengthened the muscles. Kraton made sure that the muscles he strengthened allowed him to gain speed, mainly in short, strong bursts for jumping and leaping. The other orbs directed to his muscles went to his body and arms, Kraton had calculated the assignment of orbs so that his body could turn faster, and his arms could thrust out punches with more speed and power. Adding that bit to the power of his arms made it harder for enemies to deflect or block his punches, making his impact as strong as a battering ram. If it was strength, not power, then his punch would be more like a bullet or artillery shell than a battering ram, this is because without power, even a cleric would be able to partially deflect the punch.

The rest of the remaining orbs were moved directly into Kraton's nervous system, as well as his major sense organs such as his eyes and ears. After te=hey had been absorbed, Kraton felt that everything was much clearer, he could see the darker corners of the room much easily and could distinguish different conversations from one another, even though he couldn't hear every word clearly, he could still eavesdrop on louder conversations. As well as this, Kraton felt his body was both quicker and more in sync with his thoughts and senses.

A few small side effect that Kraton didn't calculate before was that he could now feel other monsters' eyes on him, like a sixth sense. A second side effect was that hearing more sounds due to his better hearing was so bloody annoying! It was like a constant buzzing of flies in his ears.

After growing accustomed to the sounds, Kraton made his way back to his seat next to Kim, however along the way he almost tripped, twice. His sudden increase in leg strength made each step more powerful, his movement speed was also increased by quite a bit and the inertia was stonger than before. Previously the increase was gradual after each level, but after specialising his attributes it was a jump, albeit a small one.

Kraton dropped down onto his seat and turned to Kim who watched him return to his seat with a humourous smile, she had definately caught his awkward movements. Just when Kraton was about to speak and start a conversation with her, Hato's voice called out.

"Kim of Ardent Desert!"

Kim then left towards the altar, not caring about Kraton's half-opened mouth.

Kraton wondered for a short while why the previous Boss' conversation was so short compared to his own, maybe that guy was just dumb, or he already had his life set out for him.

Deciding to check his status in the meantime, Kraton closed his eyes and looked at his mind. Quickly after, his eyes shot open again, shock was dancing though his eyes.

'Knowledge: 256'

"My Knowledge doubled?!"