Arkbridge City - Improvement

"Huff! Huff."

With deep breaths, Osirus slowly walked over to the small bed in the middle of the room and collapsed into it, granting his body the rest it so desperately needed.

He ended up sitting there for 15 minutes, not doing anything, just looking into space as his heart calmed and body recovered.

Eventually he remembered the messages he had gotten after every kill and began to finally read them:

{User Killed 6x Grunt Moss Trogg - 25SP Gained}

{Quest : First Kill Completed - 50SP Gained}

A smile spread across his lips as read the short sentences, he would finally be able to test this system of his.

However, he first had to make sure he was safe, but considering nothing had been attracted by his fight, it was unlikely there were any other creatures.

However he still looked out the broken wall and waited for 10 minutes, but even then, nothing approached.

Walking back towards the bed, he sat on its rough cloth covers and opened up the interface before navigating to the {Skill Creation} category.

Looking at the CGI interface that allowed him to design whatever Skill he wished through 2 different sections.

One allowed him to design the 3D shape of whatever he wanted, while the second allowed him to add special effects to his design, this section also allowed him to animate the Skill if needed.

A final section allowed him to add parameters that controlled the strength, cost, speed along with an infinite number of other parameters.

Fully utilising the clear thinking and logical thought process of {Analytic Mind}, he began thinking of his situation and what ability would help him the best.

However it wasn't long before he realised he was too hasty with his actions.

Even if he created a Skill, who said he would have enough stamina, Mana or anything's to actually execute it.

What he needed to do first was improve himself at a core level, and there were 2 ways to accomplish that.

Looking at his {Status} he currently had 75SP, enough to level up his {Mana Cultivation} or his {Body Cultivation}.

With the first level for each of them costing 10SP each, he could even level up both if he wanted.

However, without knowing just how much of an improvement each level provided, he didn't know if it outweighed the worth of a more powerful Skill.

And the only way of knowing how powerful each level was, was to upgrade them, but which one should he increase in level.

Thinking quickly and conclusively, he came to a decision, he would level up {Body Cultivation}.

He had already seen the effect his average body had in his survival, so without knowing how powerful Mana was, the only logical choice was the path he had already seen the effects of.

With but a thought, the golden letters morphed and changed, {SP:75~65} and {Body Cultivation:Lv.1~Lv.2(0/20SP}, as he watched the digits change, he felt his body undergoing a change as well.

It felt as if he was drinking a cold bottle of water on a hot day, but instead of just feeling it on his throat, his whole body felt the comfort spread through his body.

Followed by a refreshing and energising feeling, washing away any fatigue he felt from before, it was complemented by a growing strength which increased for about 1 minute, when the refreshing feeling slowly dissipated, leaving only strength.

It wasn't only his strength that increased, he felt every sense increase slightly.

Tensing his muscles, he felt energy ripple through them.

Looking at the amount of SP it took to upgrade {Body Cultivation}, along with his current amount of SP as well as the euphoric feeling of increasing strength, he couldn't help but to level it up once again.

{SP:65~45}

{Body Cultivation:Lv.2~Lv.3(0/30SP}

A pleasant refreshing feeling flowed through his body again, his strength slowly increasing along with it. It wasn't long before the feeling slowly dissipated, leaving only boundless strength.

Looking around the destroyed room, he walked towards a large stone slab that had fallen from the collapsed wall, it was roughly 50cm by 50cm and about 10cm thick, such a large piece of pure rock would weigh roughly 65kg, give or take a few depending on the exact type of rock.

Normally a weight as heavy as this would be almost impossible for him to even move, however as he bent down, making sure to keep his back straight, and gripped the edges of the stone, all it took was a slight grunt for him to slowly lift it off the ground and to chest height, completely raising it from the ground.

Pleased with his strength improvement, he dropped the stone to the floor, a muffled boom sounded as it contacted the floor.

Thinking for a while, he calculated his strength had probably increased by about 50% along with his stamina, endurance, speed and senses, bringing an all-round improvement to his body.

Sitting back on the bed, he began the second stage of his improvement, and the one he was most excited for, it was time to create a Skill!

A familiar black and gold interface appeared before him as he began to think carefully on what Skill he should create, however before coming to a decision, he began to tinker with the different buttons and options, swiftly created a couple Skills, one Passive and one Active to get a rough estimate on how expensive they would be. The first was a Passive Skill called Diversion.

{Diversion - So long as the attacks towards the User are equal to, or less than the Users own maximum strength, 20% of the force is redirected away from the User.

Cost - 375SP}

Osirus designed the special effects so that whenever an attack hit him, there would be a slight rippling of a barrier that was skin tight around his body, which would in turn divert a portion of the attack.

Osirus wasn't surprised by its cost as he continued to change and adjust its effects until he reached a cheaper but weaker version.

{Diversion - So long as the physical attacks towards the User are equal to, or less than the Users own maximum strength, 10% of the force is redirected away from the User

Cost - 100SP}

Although the cost was still well outside his budget, he discovered an important detail, to be specific, just changing it from attacks to physical attacks, cut the SP cost in half.

Along with the Passive Skill, he created an Active Skill called {Quick Slice}.

{Quick Slice - When activated, for a single bladed attack, the wind resistance is 50% less than normal at the cost of 10% of the Users total stamina.

Cost - 35SP}

After a few minor adjustments, such as it being at the cost of stamina and that it was only effective for bladed weapons, he was finally able to bring its cost to a price he was able to afford, while also saving 10SP for unexpected circumstances.

He came to the decision of creating {Quick Slice} as his only powerful weapon was the shortsword in his hand and using this Skill, he would be able to quicken the speed of an attack by about 50%, which could prove fatal in an intense battle.

Adding the final details such as the blade gaining a slight green glow when activated, he finally completed the Skill and clicked the create button.

As soon as the button was pressed, he watched his SP dropped to 10 as a new addition was added to his Active Skills section, followed by another message:

{Quest : First Skill Completed - 25SP Gained}

He decided to save his SP for now as he had no idea what he was to face leaving this building so it was better to wait for more information before deciding anything, besides, he already had a Skill he could use:

{Active Skills : Quick Slice Lv.1 (0/10 Proficiency) - Beginner}

What piqued his interest was unlike his {Analytic Mind} Skill, this one had a level as well as a Beginner designation, focusing on the information, the golden letters morphed into an explanation.

{Each time a Skill is used, the proficiency increases by 1, once the required proficiency is reached, the Skills level increases, which in turn improves the overall parameters of the Skill.}

{Each Skill is given a Rank, by levelling up a Skill 10 times, it enters the next Rank, achieving a substantial improvement in its overall parameters.}

Quickly digesting this information, Osirus decided to test out the {Quick Slice} as it would help him understand its effects as well as increase proficiency.

Thus getting up from the bed and stretching out his limbs, he brandished the sword, resting it on his shoulder since he didn't know any actual sword skills, so he could only resort to these crude movements.

Standing before the collapsed wardrobe, he widened his stance, tensed his muscles and swung downwards, the sword travelling in a diagonal motion from his right shoulder to his left foot.

As he did he activated the Skill in his mind.

'{Quick Slice}.'

Instantly a light green hue shined across his blade, its speed increasing substantially as it felt as if any resistance was taken away, its sharp edge slashed across the wood material, cutting it apart and shattering it in the meantime.

Taking a step back and a deep breath, Soirus was very pleased with its strength, however the cost was no joke, he already felt his heart pumping faster and his arms feeling a slight strain.

However he felt it was worth it as he looked at the proficiency that had increased by 1.

Unfortunately it was now that his hunger had caught up to him, with such intense exercise, it was expected to feel hungry, but before he went out on a perilous search for food, he decided it was worth it to increase the level of {Quick Slice} by at least 1 since it only required him to use to attack 9 more times.

20 Minutes later.

After completing another 6 attacks, a short rest and then the final 3 strikes, his proficiency reached {10/10}, causing the Skills level to increase and information slightly change.

{Active Skills : Quick Slice Lv.2 (0/20 Proficiency) - Beginner}

{Quick Slice - When activated, for a single bladed attack, the wind resistance is 55% less than normal at the cost of 10% of the Users total stamina}

It was a small change of 5%, however it was still useful as every bit of help counted, plus these 5% would begin to build up with each increase in level.

Although he had levelled it up, the cost was that his hunger had increased drastically, looking out the collapsed wall on the second floor, the sun had begun to fall towards the horizon, leaving him with about 2-3 hours of sunlight before nightfall.

He would have to find some sort of food by then as he had no confidence fighting those Moss Troggs in the dark.

After checking the cold corpses of the Moss Troggs he wasn't able to find anything of use, not even a sheath for the shortsword as it seemed they just always carried them.

Thus, after ascertaining that his surroundings were safe, he walked down the creaking stairs and left the crumbling building.