Chapter 197: Breakthrough

Derek removed his clothes and sat cross-legged. He took in a deep breath, then decided to increase his Endurance first. Even though increasing Endurance had felt much worse at 1,000 points than Vitality did, he knew that the Vitality threshold had a much higher chance of causing real damage to him.

He prepared himself, then put one stat point into Endurance. He waited for the skin crawling and itching, but it never came. Derek snorted. I guess 1,500 points isn’t a threshold or breakth- Instantly, the pain hit.

It started at the bones. At once, they cracked, and he felt as if they turned to dust. From his seated position, Derek fell onto his back. It was as if he had nothing to hold his body together. The pain… it was pure agony.

Derek did his best to keep breathing, but he couldn’t take in a breath. It was like his lungs had collapsed. Soon, however, Derek felt the rebuilding. New bones replaced the old, still agonizing as they formed and moved the muscle and organs back into place. Finally, the bones were back in place, and Derek was able to gasp in a breath.

A single breath was all he was able to draw, as his muscles were next. Just as the bones had, his muscles collapsed and turned into jelly. The pain wasn’t near as bad as with the bones, but it was a different feeling altogether. He was paralyzed, but could still feel. It was like he had sleep paralysis for an extended time.

Slowly, the muscle reformed, and he could move again. Derek took in another breath, then closed his eyes. He knew the skin would be next. Sure enough, a burning sensation fell over his entire body. Light invaded Derek’s eyes as he realized his eyelids had disappeared. Curious, he raised his forearm to take a peek.

What he saw was something straight out of an anatomy book. No skin covered his muscles, his taut, dark, almost metallic muscles. The pain was very bearable. He never thought that he would say that having no skin, along with no sense of touch and feel would be bearable. But, compared to everything else, losing his skin wasn’t bad.

Then the itching started. It started at his feet and worked its way up. Metallic skin weaved itself over his bones and muscle before tightening and changing to his natural skin color, one that didn’t shine in the sun. Derek recalled the itching to be worse at his previous breakthrough. Though, it could have just been that his mind was too fascinated by what was happening in front of him to care much about the itching sensation.

He watched as his skin formed over his feet, then legs. Soon, the skin was forming over his forearms, which he brought close to his face to take an even better look. It was like he was seeing millions, if not billions, of molecules forming together to create his skin. It was something he imagined having nanobots healing a cut would look like.

Soon, the skin covered his hands and fingers, creating new nails in the process. Then he blinked. That was when he realized this part of the breakthrough was finished.

Derek curled his hand into a fist and grinned. His body was stiff, extremely so, but the flexibility would come with time.

Then, it felt like he got the wind knocked out of him as his remaining organs began the process. Next came his kidneys, then liver. When it happened to his heart, it was scary. Luckily, instead of disintegrating his organs, then rebuilding from the ground up, it seemed that it was more of a reinforcement.

His heart stopped beating for a minute, or beat extremely slowly, Derek wasn’t sure. He was just happy when it started up again. Finally, the reinforcement came to his brain. Dizziness washed over him. A dizziness he’d never experienced, not with concussions, nor with anything else. The entire dungeon was spinning… until it wasn’t.

Finally, he went blind for a few moments. That wasn’t too bad, as he had lost his senses before during meditation. Derek waited, then he was able to see again.

Then he waited. He wanted to make sure that the breakthrough was completely finished before he chose to do anything else. After five minutes of nothing happening, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Derek hopped up and did some stretches, loosening up. After a half hour or so, the stiffness receded and his control of his body was back to normal… no… it seemed his control was even a little better than it used to be. He couldn’t wait to see his control when he broke through with Dexterity.

Derek looked back to where he was sitting, then laying. There was a small puddle of blood, much less than he thought there would be. I guess it’s because the process worked from the inside out. Derek shrugged, then found a new, clean piece of land to sit on before starting the process all over again.

He tossed a point into Vitality, then waited for the process to begin, and soon, it did. Just like before, he could feel the blood pumping through his heart and vessels, like a flood on a river. A heaviness settled over his chest as his heart thundered.

It felt like his heart was a balloon, and the blood was filling it up. That, on top of the burning inside made for a very uncomfortable feeling. His breathing was very shallow as the blood flowed through his lungs, as well.

The veins in his arms threatened to burst through the skin as they inflated to keep up with the blood flow. Derek winced as a sharp headache came over him. It seemed that everywhere that blood flowed was tested. Again, he was happy in his choice to upgrade his Endurance before his Vitality.

The whole process was only a bit uncomfortable for Derek, but he expected it would have been another story if his body wasn’t as strong as it was after the upgrade.

Soon the flow calmed and his heart began pumping at a more regular pace. Derek took a deep breath, and his headache also went away. It was amazing at how one second everything was like a rising storm, then the next, it was over.

Derek hopped up again, and jumped around. He didn’t feel much different from the Vitality increase. The biggest change was that he felt more energetic, like he’d drank too much coffee or had too much sugar and needed to work off the excess energy. He would have liked to see what his blood actually looked like at the moment, but he doubted he would be able to leave more than a scratch on himself.

He chuckled at the thought, then looked at his new stats. His eyes fell on his Health and Stamina and widened. They were both crazy high, sitting at 37,500 points each.

When his Vitality passed 1,000 points, he had received 15 HP per point, but now, after doing some quick calculations, he realized he was getting 25 HP per point of Vitality. The same was true for his Stamina, as well.

At this point, he even wondered how badly a critical hit would injure him. Would he be able to survive getting his head blasted off? Could his brain rebuild as fast as it was destroyed? Well, neither of those things was something that Derek would want to test… ever.

He dismissed his stat windows and looked at some of the notifications that had appeared after spending his points. He was excited, thinking about how he had gotten new skills and Awards before. He quickly pulled the first notification up.

Congratulations

You have brought your Endurance to the maximum system allotment. You are at the top of users of The Great System in Endurance. Be proud of yourself, as few users ever reach such heights.

What? Derek stared at the message for some time. He couldn’t believe what he had read. There’s a cap on stats? What is this shit? Was there a cap on the other system? Derek thought back. He couldn’t recall anyone ever talking about any level or stat caps, but Earth was new to the other system.

They were still in the tutorial phase when he left the planet and the system. For all he knew, the cap could have been the same there as it was here. Derek didn’t know how he should feel about the shocking news he just learned. He would have to ask somebody about it later. Alanah should be coming for one of the auctions… I’ll talk to her about it when I get back.

Derek waved the notification away, and moved to the next, already knowing what it was going to say.

Congratulations

You have brought your Vitality to the maximum system allotment. You are at the top of users of The Great System in Vitality. Be proud of yourself, as few users ever reach such heights.

Yup… just as expected. Derek looked again to make sure there weren’t any other notifications hidden. There weren’t. He sighed.

Just to make sure what the system said was true, he tried to add a stat point into Endurance. To his shock, the point went in, and one of his stat points disappeared. However, the 1,500 didn’t increase. Instead, it changed to 1500 (???). Confused, he tried adding another, then another. After adding five stat points, it no longer accepted points anymore.

Since it was only five stat points, Derek did the same with Vitality. Again, it accepted five points, but no more. He looked over his stats.

Stats

Strength

Dexterity

Endurance

Vitality

Intelligence

Wisdom

Stat Points Remaining

825

825

1500 (???)

1500 (???)

825

825

63

Derek shook his head. “What the fuck is going on?”