Other Heroes / Advancing

*At The Castle's Training Grounds*

The group of fourteen teenagers, who had previously been students but were now Heroes, were all training their individual abilities. This meant that multiple of them were wielding weapons of the highest quality, while others were practicing their magical abilities.

The most impressive Hero by far was Alexander, the Sword Hero. He was wielding a large sword with great skill and continually attacked a large metal target which was seemingly close to breaking.

With one final swing of his sword, the target was split in half, and he put his sword down. Since the group had become Heroes, Alexander was the one who had shown the greatest strength, especially when they went out on their first dungeon raid.

This was to a relatively weak dungeon which was a hobgoblin nest, and the Heroes demolished it with ease. This was mostly due to Alexander taking the lead and killing the enemies with no problem.

As he was the one who had killed the most monsters in the dungeon, Alexander's status was the highest and looked like this.

Name: Alexander

Level: 37

Class: Sword Hero

Skills:

Swordsmanship: Innate talent for swordsmanship. Increases your learning speed with swords, and makes sword attacks more effective.

Energy Slash: Release a line of energy from your sword which caused mass damage to enemies.

Magic Channelling: Able to channel magic through your sword to create different elemental effects.

Stats:

Attack: 128

Agility: 128

Defence: 128

Magic: 128

Resistance: 128

This level of growth was unprecedented, as he started out with all of his stats at 20, and then gained 3 stat points in each stat for every level he gained. Most people only gained 1 stat point every level, and the other Heroes all gained 2.

As Alexander had just destroyed a large target and showed great skill in doing so, everyone showed great respect for him and even the King, who had been watching, praised him.

"Truly spectacular, I am glad to have a Hero as strong as yourself on my side, especially considering we had a useless Hero summoned. It is a shame about him, we attempted to give him some money and send him on his way in hopes that he would not be put in danger by fighting monsters, but he instead ran into the nearby forest out of fear. When our soldiers attempted to find him, they instead found a mangled corpse. It looked as though he had been killed by a monster, a tragic fate really."

This was the story that the King had told the Heroes about Verce, and they all seemed to believe it for some reason. None of them seemed to be bothered by his supposed death, as they now realised that being strong was the most important thing in the world they were stuck in. Therefore, having a weak team member would have just hindered them, so some of them were actually happy that Verce was gone.

*In The Dungeon With Verce*

Verce was walking with confidence through the dungeon, with a trail of dead minotaurs left behind him. He had grown stronger from killing these enemies, and could take them down with ease now.

Another minotaur came into his sight, and he checked its status to see how strong it was.

Name: -----

Level: 63

Class: -----

Skills:

Enhanced Strength: Your physical abilities are increased.

Stats:

Attack: 650

Agility: 360

Defence: 600

Magic: 55

Resistance: 480

"Pretty average, should be as easy as the last few."

Verce put on another song to help him kill the minotaur, as although he could probably defeat it without doing so, he wanted to be sure of his victory. He also wanted to see what temporary skill he would gain from this song.

He looked through the music library and picked out a song. This song was 'MIDNIGHT MASS' by Sadzilla and ONI INC. (It is on Spotify, so listen to it while reading if you want.)

As always with his skills, Verce felt stronger as soon as the music started playing. He also felt in his mind that the temporary skill granted by this song was external gravity manipulation. He had learnt while progressing through the dungeon, that some skills from songs were incredibly self explanatory, and could be seen physically, but others would have information transferred to his mind so he knew what it was.

While keeping some distance, Verce put his hand out and activated the gravity skill. He decided to increase the gravity acting on the minotaur's head by 10X. This immediately made it's head slam to the ground and the minotaur was unable to stand up.

Verce got a bit closer, and increased the gravity even more to 20X which caused the minotaur's head to clearly become misshapen and it looked as though someone was pressing down on it.

Finally Verce increased the gravity to 50X, and the minotaur's head immediately exploded under the force. After he was done with this, Verce kept walking and took out multiple enemies in similar ways, only being much quicker and going straight for the higher gravity.

Eventually, Verce reached a huge door which was guarded by a bigger minotaur than any of the ones before. He looked at its status and was happy to see a stronger enemy, as stronger enemies meant better gains.

Name: -----

Level: 100

Class: Minotaur Guardian

Skills:

Enhanced Strength: Your physical abilities are increased.

Sacrifice: Able to sacrifice health for strength.

Stats:

Attack: 1800

Agility: 900

Defence: 1600

Magic: 200

Resistance: 1200

This was by far the strongest enemy he had encountered yet, but he knew that he could definitely beat it. Especially considering his stats were higher than most of the minotaur's stats, alongside his ability to become stronger while listening to music, and his ability to gain temporary skills from music. He started to think what song he should pick, and eventually decided before checking his status before he attempted to fight the Minotaur Guardian.

Name: Vercingetorix

Level: 87

Class: Demon King of Music

Species: Great Demon

Skills:

Music Library: Any and all music you have ever heard is perfectly stored in a library in your mind. This includes both the musical and lyrical side of the song. This music can be mentally listened to at any time.

Strengthened By The Music: While listening to music, you will become stronger by a large amount. Skills may also be temporarily gained while listening to music, these may depend on the type of music being listened to, or the emotions you are feeling while listening to it.

Human Speaker: Able to play any song that you know through your entire body at any volume that you desire.

Sound Wave: While playing music, can control the sound waves created by said music in varying ways.

Music Dimension: Able to create a space which the user can take a single other person. This can be used for many purposes which depend on the type of music played in the dimension, as the music will be played throughout the entire space to be heard by all inside.

Music Illusion: When enemies weaker than you hear a song played by you while this skill is being used, they will have an illusion which is dependent on what type of music is being played.

A Bard's Rage: After taking a substantial amount of damage while in combat, as long as you are listening to music, all of your stats and skills will become immensely more powerful in return for your sanity being taken over by rage until the song is over. You will also be healed of all injuries after this effect ends.

Demon King's Left Eye: To replace your lost left eye, a new and better one has taken its place. This eye can view the status of monsters and people alike. It is also able to see things which are normally hidden to regular vision, such as living being's energies and emotions among many other things. This eye will also allow you to see in the dark, as well as allowing you to see faults in enemies movements.

Demon King's Right Hand: To replace your lost right hand, a new and better one has taken its place. This hand can make those weaker than you, in terms of levels and stats, bow down to you, and follow your orders if you wish for them to. If an enemy is stronger than you, in terms of level and stats, then you must first defeat them in a fight, break their will, and make them bow down to you with your own power.

Demon King's Stat Enhancement: Every level you gain, your stat point increase will quadruple. Applies to any stats previously gained. (20 Points Per Level) *NEW*

Stats:

Attack: 1735

Agility: 1735

Defence: 1735

Magic: 1750

Resistance: 1750

Verce was incredibly happy with his status, especially his new skill which drastically increased his stats. There was nothing else he could do to get ready, so he started playing the song he had decided on and charged at the enemy.