Chapter 19: After the Battle

You have successfully destroyed a creature not belonging to the Great System.

New Award Earned

Derek was excited to see that he would be getting something new from slaying the Void Beast, and that it was not all for nothing. I hope it’s a passive increase. I really miss those Titles from the other system. That system was so nice. I wouldn’t mind something else cool, though. A new skill or something wouldn’t be bad. Or a new weapon… Derek looked at his glaive. Seeing the chip in the blade saddened him. No, not a new weapon. This one is just fine.

Derek prepared himself and brought up his next notification.

Lesser Slayer of the Unknown

You have slain a creature unknown to the Great System. This is a rare feat only achievable by few people. Not only are Unknown Entities strong, but it is rare to encounter one. You will be awarded with the following:

1 Skill Point

20 Extra Stat Points

3 Skill Upgrade Points

Automatic Level Up

Slay more creatures unknown to the Great System to earn more rewards.

He stared at the window in front of him. Something seemed off about this Award. That is a much better explanation from this system than I’m used to receiving. Derek wondered if the system had an invested interest in eliminating these creatures. If it did, it would make sense why it had finally properly explained something.

The rewards aren’t too bad. Stat Points are always needed, and it’s good to have an extra Skill point in my back pocket. Derek looked at the ‘Automatic Level Up’ reward. Dammit. Why couldn’t it have waited until it was hard for me to level before I got this? That would be a fantastic reward if I was level 100 or 200, but from 10 to 11… Derek shook his head, sighing in disappointment.

He focused on the Skill Upgrade Points. The kid and Leon never said anything about Skill Upgrade Points. It’s kind of self explanatory, let’s see. A window related to Skill Upgrade Points appeared in his vision.

Skill Upgrade Point

Choose any skill you currently own and upgrade said skill. This upgrade will boost the skill by one level.

Skill Upgrade Points Remaining: 3

Derek had the compulsion to put all three Skill Upgrade Points into Heavy Weapons Mastery right then and there. Eventually he took a breath and calmed down. That would be dumb. These should be saved for my higher-level skills like Greater Meditation. I’m sure that Heavy Weapons Mastery won’t take too long to hit its upgrade. Derek continued to convince himself to save the points. He was finally able to move on from the Skill Upgrade Points by checking his next notification.

Congratulations

Heavy Weapons Mastery has reached level 18.

This notification made Derek relieved. Yup, not spending the points is the way to go. He moved on through the next notifications.

Congratulations

Channel Void has reached level 3.

Oh? Two levels in one fight, nice! Derek still did not completely understand what Channel Void did exactly, he had his suspicions, but no matter what, he knew the skill was very powerful. He stopped on the skill, wanting to take a look to see how the extra levels upgraded the skill.

Channel Void

Channel the void through your body. Using void energy, attack or defend. The higher the level of the skill, the easier it becomes to manipulate the void, also reduces the amount of mana needed to use.

Uses 184 mana/s

There was no change in description, but the mana that the skill used was less. Could have been better, but I can’t complain. It’s already a powerful skill, so the longer I can use it, the better.

Derek wanted to get a better idea of what the skill actually did. He looked down at the slain creature. Reaching down, he rolled the Void Beast’s corpse over onto its back. He looked at the faint mark drawn down the creature’s chest, the one left by his final blow. Didn’t even puncture the skin. He thought.

Derek took a dagger from his bracelet and tried to slice the chest open. He could not get the dagger to cut. Holy shit! The skin is still as strong as it was before. Derek had thought that the creature may have been enforcing its skin with a skill. He had seen it before. Most creatures with great defense had some kind of passive skill supporting their Endurance. But once the monster was killed, that passive skill would disappear and it would make the creature much easier to dismantle.

Shit! Why have I still not picked up the Dismantle skill. Derek had gotten by previously with just his Strength and Dexterity. When he dismantled a monster, the parts never looked as good as those gotten from others who had the skill. This did not matter much to Derek, as he had never cared for the bonuses received for selling an undamaged hide or a perfectly intact gallbladder.

What he did like about the Dismantle skill was the buffs received when dismantling a corpse. If he had the Dismantle skill leveled up to a decent level, he would have no problem dismembering the corpse in front of him. I’m such a fucking idiot. Such a cheap and basic skill that I could have bought from the system shop at any time, and I refused to buy it because I didn’t need it. Well, I need it now.

He knew that even if he had it before, he would still have to spend a Skill Point on it to have it with the new system. He did not care about that, what pissed him off was the levels that he had missed, so he would have to start with the basic level 1 skill here. Well, no time like the present.

Derek pulled up the list of General Skills and looked for Dismantle. There it is. He was initially scared that it would go by some other name and he would have to spend a lot of time looking for it, but it was still called Dismantle.

Dismantle

Dismantle is a General Skill used to skin, dismember, and dress deceased organic life form. Precision and ease to dress a life form increased with each level increase.

Cost: 1 Skill Point

That’s it.

Would You Like to Learn Dismantle?

Yes.

Dismantle Learned Successfully

Skill Points Remaining: 2

Damn, now I’m running low on Skill Points again. Derek took his dagger again and tried to slice the chest of the beast open. He was still unable to get through. He was not disappointed, though. Can’t be helped. I can’t expect a level 1 Dismantle skill to help that much. He had thought about using his glaive to cut the creature open, but he knew that the beast’s skin would make great armor, and he wanted to keep it in as good a condition as possible.

He gave up on his makeshift autopsy and stored his dagger and glaive. Then he reached back down and stored the body of the Void Beast as well. He looked back to where the village was. Before I leave, I’m going to have to go get as many corpses as possible so I can level up the Dismantle skill.

With his new plan in mind, he checked his remaining notifications.

Congratulations

Void Call has reached level 2.

Fuck you! Next. He looked at his next notification.

Level Up

Must be from the auto level reward. He moved on to the final notification.

You Have Killed Unknown Entity

Entity Not Part of Great System

No Experience Gained

0/600 Experience to Next Level

You’ve gotta be kidding me. Fucking stingy ass system. No XP, none? What’s this 0/600 shit? Don’t tell me that the ‘Automatic Level Up’ reward just filled up the amount of experience I need to get to the next level. Derek was livid. He continued cursing the new system for some time. Finally, he got control of his emotions. Whatever, I shouldn’t expect anything more from this scam of a system.

He viewed his status.

Status

Name

Derek Hunt

Age

29

Level

11

Experience

0/600

Class

Champion of the Void (Epic)

Race

Human (Modified)

Health

5100

Mana

1950

Stamina

4910

Defense

49 (Armor + 135)

Attack

46 (Weapon + 0)

Stats

Strength

343

Dexterity

241

Endurance

491

Vitality

510

Intelligence

203

Wisdom

195

Stat Points Remaining

40

Skills

Channel Void

Level 3

Channel the Void through your body, into attacks or defenses.

Dismantle

Level 1

Increase ability to dismantle deceased organic life forms.

Greater Meditation

Level 1

Enter meditative state to increase recovery.

Heavy Weapons Mastery

Level 18

Increase damage with heavy weapons.

Identify

Level 8

Appraise objects or entities.

Void Call

Level 2

Call out to the Void.

Skill Points Remaining

2

Skill Upgrade Points Remaining

3

Awards

Giant Slayer, Lesser Slayer of the Unknown

Not bad. Derek still got a kick out of looking at his stats, then his level. Not bad at all for a lowly level 11.

Derek walked back towards the abandoned Village. When he reached the back gate, he went inside. He whistled as he strolled through, storing corpse after corpse in his bracelet. Bunny, bunny, wolf, wolf, bear… nah, too big. He ended up storing 23 monster corpses in his bracelet. When he focused on his bracelet he frowned. Damn, looks like the things beginning to get full.

He walked out of the front gate, his gaze landing towards the direction of the refugees. Well, I got a kid to find and get home.

He left.