If you want to read up to 20 chapters ahead go to https://www.patreón.com/cornbringer
Discord invite: https://discord.gg/XHduApz
I had no internet to post till now. My bad.
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[Alex Walker POV]
I opened my stats to check how much Set had given me, level-wise. As I had yet to check that. Mostly because my first order of business was healing Sif, so I really paid that part very little attention.
"Stats."
[STATS
Name = Alex Walker.
Race = Unknown.
Title = The Gamer.
Occupation = King of The Nine Realms.
Ranking = 90th.
Level = 3192.
Weapon = Serenity [Equipped.]
EXP =82.1%/100%
HP = 1,972,519,000/1,972,519,000.
MP = 2,644,350,000/2,644,350,000.
STR = 1460070 (+190%) = 4234203.
VIT = 1578015 (+150%) = 3945038.
DEF = 1251289 (+150%) = 3128223.
DEX= 1439325 (+150%) = 3598313.
INT = 2115480 (+150%) = 5288700.
CHA = 867894 (+150%) = 2169735.
WIS = 1515478 (+150%) = 3788695.
WILL = 7008215 (+150%) = 17520538.
PER = 1076456 (+150%) = 2691140.
LUK = 10000 (+150%) = 25000.
STAT POINTS = 83812.
MONEY: 43,020,785,212.99$]
He had given me four hundred and sixty-six levels, not bad.
My stats were really insane with Serenity equipped, a plus 150% to all stats just by having the weapon equipped.
[STATS
Name = Alex Walker.
Race = Unknown.
Title = The Gamer.
Occupation = King of The Nine Realms.
Ranking = 90th.
Level = 3192.
Weapon = Serenity [Not equipped.]
EXP =82.1%/100%
HP = 789,007,500/789,007,500.
MP = 1,057,740,000/1,057,740,000.
STR = 1460070 (+40%) = 2044098.
VIT = 1578015
DEF = 1251289
DEX= 1439325
INT = 2115480
CHA = 867894
WIS = 1515478
WILL = 7008215
PER = 1076456
LUK = 10000
STAT POINTS = 83812.
MONEY: 43,020,785,212.99$]
And that was without Serenity.
The difference was palpable.
Beyond that, I was happy with my progress so far.
Leveling wise.
Now that I think about it, leveling has become easier again. Before absorbing Tiamut, leveling was a very hard ordeal, but now, it was like before, hell, even faster.
I wonder why?
Wait… what am I doing?
"Don't question it, Alex, just accept it," I sighed, this was, after all, one of those things you didn't have to question. Like free food… wait, no, you do have to question that.
But that's beyond the point, right now, I need to talk with Thor before leaving back to the dungeons again.
According to Sif, his mission had affected him emotionally. So, as his brother, it was my duty to help him out.
"Brother," I said, opening the door to his room.
"Brother," Thor smiled, and immediately I was able to see what Sif had seen in him.
"What happened?" I asked, walking towards him.
"I… it's nothing," Thor smiled, waving my question off.
"Thor," I said, putting my right on his shoulder. "Talk to me."
"I killed a lot of people, brother," Thor muttered, relenting under my comforting grip. "I tried to do what I had set out to do in a peaceful manner, I was certain when I left the Kings and Queens of the Nine-realms would understand the dire situation we were in… alas, they didn't."
I sighed, already knowing where this was going.
"So, I… killed them," Thor muttered, taking a deep breath. "I killed all of them, conquering those who didn't want to be saved for this upcoming war."
I said nothing letting him talk, as I checked who he had killed with powers.
A few Jotuns, including the King, aka the Frost Giants.
A few Vanir, mostly the royal guard that had tried to protect their King.
And, Surtur.
Alfheim apparently agreed to the proposition without opposition.
Basically 90% of those he had killed were nothing but enemies of Asgard.
"Thor, the only ones that weren't enemies of Asgard were the Vanir, and I'm not sure the Vanir King was even our ally, based on what I checked about him," I replied, giving Thor a reassuring hug. "Surtur wanted to destroy Asgard, and so did the Jotuns."
"I killed Loki's father…" Thor muttered, eyeing the ground in shame. "I want to fix this family… I want to bring all of us together, I want to be different from my father, but… I always end up taking the path my father would…"
I sighed, slapping him in the back of the head as I broke the hug, "Thor, you killed a monster, I read Laufey's mind, or a copy of his mind a few seconds ago, and he didn't care a single bit for Loki, heck, I care for Loki than him, which is to say a lot, considering our interactions. Surtur, well, he simply wanted to end Asgard, Ragnarok and all, and the Vanir, don't worry about them, I will resurrect their asses after the war ends, save for the King… he was plotting to take control over Asgard, deeming you unfit to rule."
"He was plotting?" Thor muttered.
"Yeah. The reason? You made me a prince, which he considered blasphemy." I chuckled, rolling my eyes. "You did good Thor, in the past, you used to kill for the thrill of it, for the sake of battle. Now? You killed for the sake of others, for Asgard's future instead of fun."
Thor chuckled, "I guess that's one way to see it."
"I will slap you if you continue being down," I chuckled back.
"It's not the killing that affects me, not that much anyways. But, seeing how blind others are, and how they forced my hand… I- I didn't want to kill them, or harm them, in any way, yet all they cared about was their crown, not their people…" Thor sighed, rubbing his temples for a second.
"Thor, that's just politics… I can literally count with my right hand the amount of rulers that care about their people, and still have fingers left." I replied, taking a seat beside him. "Had you not taken care of them, Knull would've used them to fight us, and more would've died, you did more for them in a day, than their Kings and Queens did in a lifetime. Because you cared."
Thor smiled, taking a deep breath, "I know it's stupid how I feel right now, but seeing their greed control their actions… It affected me more than I thought it would.
"I know," I nodded.
"But, you are right! I can't let this drown me! I am MIGHTY!" Thor added, jumping to his feet.
Well… that was a quick change of emotions. "You sure are." I nodded.
"There's no time to be a Bucky! We have an enemy to defeat, and I, Thor, the best brother you have, and will ever have, can't let the foolishness of others affect me!" Thor declared, beaming at me.
There's no time to be a Bucky….
"Exactly," I nodded, trying not to lose my shit laughing at this Bucky joke.
If you want to read up to 20 chapters ahead go to https://www.patreón.com/cornbringer
Discord invite: https://discord.gg/XHduApz
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[Alex Walker POV]
For the next following days, after talking with Thor, I continued doing dungeons. Familiarizing not only with my weapon on a deep fundamental level but with my skills. Before, I had never had the need to train, really train.
Before all of this, my approach to things was always the most simplistic one. Sure, I planned and trained, but my training wasn't really training, and my plans weren't really plans.
I had several skills in my arsenal. Yet, I had never actually familiarized myself with any of them; instead, simply deciding to use whatever was the most powerful thing at any given moment.
And while this approach had worked so far, I knew it was bound to fail, eventually.
It was a glaring weakness of mine, the oversimplification of things. I planned and trained but kept my path dangerously linear.
I had won every fight I had ever been in because I had always been the top dog.
Never really needing more than raw strength and a simple, straightforward strategy to solve my problems.
Power alone was not always the key to victory. Sure, it helped a lot, being powerful, not gonna lie, but brawn without brain would never really amount to much, and the same could be said about brains without brawn.
There were many things I could do with what I had, many applications to my powers. Applications I never even considered. Instead, using my powers in the most basic manner to tackle everything ahead of me.
I had wasted my potential before. But now that I was aware, I would not allow that to happen.
"Skills," I muttered, opening my skill tab as I walked through the seemingly empty dungeon, nearing the boss area.
[Skills]
[Mana Tune - ACTIVE/BUFF - LV 161 =
This buff allows the user to become more sensitive to mana, giving the user the ability to control and manage his mana better. While active, this buff regenerates the target's MP for (1.6% of WIS) per second for an hour.
MP/s without {Serenity} = 112131 MP/s.
MP/s with {Serenity} = 280329 MP/s.
Cooldown = 1 hour.
No cost.]
[Determination - ACTIVE/BUFF - LV 159 =
This buff allows the user to become more sensitive to the life around him and within himself, giving the user the ability to control and manage his HP better. While active, the user regenerates (0.3% of his maximum health every second.) for an hour.
HP/s without {Serenity} = 2367022 HP/s.
HP/s with {Serenity} = 5917557 HP/s.
Cooldown = 1 hour.
No cost.]
[Cosmic Armor - ACTIVE - LV 181 =
This ability gives the user or his target a shield that lasts 5 hours, absorbing a total [(181 * 1% of INT * 0.8% of WIS) / 362] of damage before breaking. The user cannot shield himself or a friendly target after the shield breaks for 30 minutes.
SHIELD amount without {Serenity} = 128224971.
SHIELD amount with {Serenity} = 801476041.
Cooldown = 1 sec.
Cost = 1.5% of total MP.]
Those were the main sustain skills I was leveling. Beyond that, I was also focusing on leveling [Precognition]; after all, the best way to sustain oneself in battle was to avoid all damage altogether.
I was also increasing my weapon skill level.
[Serenity - Weapon Skill - Passive - LV 579 =
Allows the user to freely handle Serenity better. 6369% increase in energy consumption efficiency.
Affinity LV 10 = +50% increase to all weapon buffs.]
As for damaging abilities.
Well, I didn't have anything solid yet to use against Knull. I already had a good enough defense prepared for him in terms of skills, but in the offensive area, I was still lacking.
I was, however, planning to fix that.
Based on my information about him, I knew he was weak against light-based powers and anything that affected his connection to the symbiote hive mind.
With that, I had more than enough to work with.
At least on the light-based part.
I yet had to face a symbiote to see how the hive mind in question operated. So, trying to weaken him through this mental connection was a maybe for the time being.
This wasn't to say I was not gonna explore the possibilities of said weakness, only that exploring said possibilities would not be my main priority for now.
I first wanted to tackle the baser aspect of combat; before indulging any of my already limited time in other less direct strategies to deal with Knull.
"Here we are," I muttered, eyeing my map to confirm where I was. The castle of Tharaliel, The Angel of Light, the boss of this dungeon. According to the dungeon description, he was an archangel on a holy mission to erase all mortal life from the planet.
Not that I really cared about the narrative of the dungeon, to begin with. I was here mainly because of the skills he had a chance to drop on his loot, which were all light-based skills.
Sadly, unlike Abaddon, there was no achievement to unlock his skills, meaning I had to kill him and hope for the best. If I was lucky, I would get what I wanted on the first run; if I wasn't, well, I would be here for a while.
Not that it bothered me.
This dungeon was on my level, and regardless of what Tharaliel dropped on the first run, I would still run it again. Granted, it would be best if I got the skills as soon as possible because that way, I would be able to start leveling them up sooner.
I especially wanted the skills [Holy Rainfall], [Lumen Cordis], and [Lumen Mortem].
Based on the dungeon guide explaining about Tharaliel's abilities, those three skills were a must-have in what I was preparing for. Especially the last one, [Lumen Mortem].
"Well, time to kick some angelic ass!" I declared, kicking the doors of Tharaliel's castle open. Ready to erase his feathery ass for the first time out of many.
"Finally, you have arrived, mortal," I heard a melodic, soothing voice echo across the castle. As a figure came into view with a blinding flash of light, a man, twice as tall as the average human, with four pairs of wings on his back, wearing an armor that seemed to be made entirely out of gold. "I understand you've been looking for me." He smiled, his hand extending towards him in a gesture that reminded me of all paintings, "Come, then. Show me the power of the one that vanquished my armies."
Armies? He had at best two hundred angels around the dungeon. That's not an army; that's a cult, if anything.
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