Jordan felt the warmth of the soul essence filling up his soul and it felt good. It felt as though his body was being massaged after a day of sore inducing work.
He only had a second to spare the level up messages that appeared in his retina a moment before his vision swarmed and his body convulsed in pain.
"Argh!" he groaned in pain and collapsed on the ground.
His shoulder blade was shattered, his ribs were mostly cracked but some were completely broken. Not to mention his internal organs.
The final bout he fought with the Bone Ape had worsened his injuries to an extreme degree.
Even something as simple as breathing felt like the hardest task in existence. Blood fell from his temples completely smearing his face.
Jordan tightened his jaw and ground his teeth to keep himself from groaning out in pain. They had won against overwhelming odds and they didn't have to use up their trump cards to do it. Jordan couldn't allow that type of victory to be overshadowed with the others worrying about his injuries.
Besides, he could already feel some of his wounds were closing up, especially his internal organs.
'Huh I wonder why that is' Jordan wondered as he summoned his Spirit Record.
He was taken by surprise that his retina was instantly flooded with strings of text one after another.
…
[You have acquired the soul essence of Level 39 Second Star Order Bone Ape
You have received Strength +40, Stamina +35, Magic +20, Health +50]
[You have leveled up to level 15…
[You have leveled up to level 16…
[You have leveled up to level 17.
You get 2 stat points to distribute freely]
[Congratulations! You have broken through to the first layer of War State.
You have acquired the title 'Child of War'
You have gained the passive skill 'War State: First Layer']
['War State: First Layer' (Passive skill): The war state is an elevated state of being that puts a being on the path of blood, carnage and war. Those who have achieved this state experience new sensations as well as gain various benefits that differ from layer to layer. War State has three layers.
At the First Layer: Pain resistance +60%, Health regeneration speed +30% and all stats +40% in a state of combat]
[Title: 'Child of war'- As one who has broken through to the first layer of War State. Your attack power increases by 10% and your ability to learn combat techniques increases by 30%.]
…
'Crazy' Jordan thought through the pain.
This was absolutely crazy.
Were titles supposed to have that much of an effect?
'Well Huey did say that his title also increases his stats by a significant margin' Jordan thought once again. 'Still that was a title yet this…'
His passive skill had more of an effect than his title!
What was this? Wasn't this too overpowered? And if he was one of the few to achieve this 'War State' then didn't that mean that there may be others out there somewhere? Others who had mastered all three layers of War State?
Shaking his head Jordan decided to pay attention to his body and as the passive skill description stated, his body's regeneration had improved a lot. The injuries torn within his internal organs were already sealing up, the fractures in his ribs were healing and the broken shoulder blade would be alright in a few minutes at best- maybe 20 minutes or less.
In short if he had a few minutes of rest, he was sure he would be in fighting form once again which was crucial in this battle.
He sat down and used his arms to support his torso upwards while his legs were stretched on the ground.
'Let's rest while we can' Jordan thought.
...
Lydia was in a slight daze as she stared at the series of green letters that shone in her retina. Because she had managed to contribute in the battle against the Bone Ape, the Spirit Record had taken her into account and distributed some of the soul essence to her and Candice by considering how much she had contributed.
Her contribution hadn't been as extensive as Jordan's so she had received a slightly less amount of soul essence but still…
Due to the current state of her soul it was more than enough. As a matter of fact it felt as if her soul was being flooded with so much soul essence that her levels were going up by crazy amounts.
Lydia stared at the messages one by one as they came.
[You have acquired the soul essence of Level 39 Second Star Order Bone Ape
You receive Strength +20, Stamina +15, Agility +15, Mana +10, Health +10]
[You have leveled up to level 11…
[You have leveled up to level 12…
[You have leveled up to level 13…
[You have leveled up to level 14.
You receive 2 stat points to distribute freely]
A euphoric sensation spread out from within her.
Lydia could already feel herself benefiting from the elevation of her soul as she leveled up. With this she would be able to help more in the coming battles. She clenched her fists and the strength she felt flowing through her body was incredible.
'Most of my stats are at 70 or slightly above that. Yet I can feel that with this I could do even more.' Lydia contemplated as she continued to feel the changes in her body.
If she felt this level of elevation just from this, how much did Huey and Jordan have in their stats?
It felt as if they had so much more than that. And she had a feeling that most of their higher stats were physical too.
She couldn't follow that path.
Yes, she felt that having decently high physical stats was important but she didn't think she had the talent to follow the pure physical path.
For one she wasn't particularly good at close combat, she didn't know any fighting techniques like Jordan and Huey seemed to have and she couldn't adapt one on the fly like Candice. Right now the main skills in her arsenal were [Air manipulation] and [Summon]
Over the course of the apocalypse she had been saving up on her unallocated stats and hadn't used them much at all. They had accumulated and right now due to her recent level up, she was sitting on 20 free stats that she could use at a mere thought.
'What I need is more mana' She made her choice.
Her control over mana was exceptional, her main combat skill was [Air manipulation] which was a mana based skill and the final trump card that would be needed soon in this battle was [Summon] which was also a mana extensive skill too.
If the universe wasn't giving her signs that her path to power wouldn't be dependent on her physical stats but her mana and magic then she didn't know what was.
Without hesitation she dumped all 20 of her free stats into mana. She felt the mana within her mana core stir and increase in volume, her sensitivity to the energy reaching a higher point where she could actually feel the pathways through which mana flowed through her body, it was warm and carrying with it a surge of power she never knew was possible even before the apocalypse.
With this her mana had reached 90 and the extra 30 stat boost that came from the purple [Battle Robe] just pushed it over to 120.
Lydia was at her strongest.
She rose to her feet and approached the corpse of the Bone Ape but her attention wasn't on the corpse with a hole through its torso but rather the two orbs that were lying on the ground beside it.
One blue the other purple.
She could see on the other side of the field that Candice was already moving to support Jordan so she would be the one to collect the treasures as she approached the two. A bubble of excitement bloomed in her heart as she picked them up.
…
Candice stood to Jordan's left while the latter sat on the ground, his breathing slow and deliberate.
Meanwhile Lydia stood in front of the two with two objects lying in the palm of her hands. They were inspecting the two treasures that were lying in Lydia's hands.
One was a Legendary grade treasure. It was a silver ring with a tiny blue crystal on it. The rest of the silver ring was engraved with intricate runes that shone with a faint blue pulse.
The other was an earring of the sort. It didn't seem to have any remarkable features and just looked like a regular earring from before the apocalypse but if one was to take a look at the earring's records they would be shocked and even in doubt that this was a Heaven Grade treasure- a treasure that was supposedly on the same level as Huey's [Black Salamander].
[Space storage ring (Legendary grade): A ring fitted with a subspace of 10 by 10 cubic meters. It can store anything within it as long as it is not made of living tissue]
[Spiritual earring (Heaven grade): An item that can increase one's resistance to mental attacks as well as soul attacks. It also increases the regeneration rate of whoever is wearing it by 60%.
Number of mental attacks blocked: 0/ 4
Number of soul attacks blocked : 0/ 4]
Jordan looked at the two items and couldn't help but feel…cheated.
All that work and this is what they get? Jordan wasn't the only one who felt this way. True both items were incredible but they weren't what they needed exactly at this moment. They had been expecting a set of destructive weapons that would possibly make the rest of the fight easier than it currently was.
"Well that is somewhat disappointing" Jordan said with a sour expression.
"And here I thought I was getting myself a fancy new toy instead of…is that an engagement ring?" Candice said with a bitter smile.
"On the bright side you could get the [Spiritual earring]. That way you can increase your healing speed" Lydia suggested while looking towards Jordan.
Jordan considered it for a moment and then he remembered how [War State: First Layer] increased his health regeneration rate by 30% and he wondered if the effects would stack up on one another.
"I'll wear it for now and then I'll hand it over to Huey. He probably needs it more than I do" he said as he received the [Spiritual earring] from Lydia.
He took a moment to look at it more closely maybe trying to spot something he could have missed. As expected the earring didn't even try to look remarkable at all.
With a resigned sigh Jordan clipped the earring to both of his ear lobes.
The effect was instant. The 30% regeneration boost from [War State: First Layer] and the 60% regeneration from the earring actually did stack up! Jordan couldn't help but smile widely. With this his recovery rate had been raised all the way to 90%!
This was a boon but soon Jordan found himself writhing in pain and discomfort. His body feeling as though hundreds of fire ants were marching through his blood and reaching every corner of his body.
POP
There was a loud sound that followed as the bones in his shoulder moved to realign themselves. The cells and tissue regenerating and mending at a fast rate.
The pain increased.
Jordan felt as though his nerves were being set on fire and in a way they were. Before the descent of the Spirit Record whenever a human or an animal was injured- let's say for example a person broke an arm, the broken arm would heal slowly over time at the expense of the appropriate nutrients found in the body.
However no one would feel any form of discomfort or pain as this happened because it was a gradual process, barely even registered by the conscious part of the brain so it was a process that was more or less thrown into the back of the brain as though it was a background process in a computer.
And right now that background process was being processed at the surface of the conscious mind hence…
Jordan had trouble holding in his roar of pain.
"Jordan!" Candice was on her knees in a flash her arms on his shoulders trying to hold him in place.
"Hey! Hey what the hell is wrong with you?" Candice tried to look at him and find out what was wrong with him but all Jordan could do was grit his teeth and endure.
Lydia and Candice could hear the sounds of his bones popping and cracking. Lydia studied him under a concerned gaze as she thought as fast as she could. For a moment, her eyes travelled up and down Jordan's body before they stopped on the earring hanging from his ear lobes.
'The earring!' she realized and immediately reached down to remove it only for a strong hand to stop her.
Caught in surprise Lydia couldn't help but ask:
"Why?"
"It's…healing…me…don't…remove…" Jordan managed to let the words out of his mouth before he shut his mouth tightly and released his grip from Lydia's hand.
Yes he was in pain, yes he was feeling uncomfortable and yes he wished that it would end soon. However he could also feel his body healing at a tremendous rate.
Like this another five minutes passed. By that time the madness from the mutated beasts was lessening around them.
The panthers from the Second Star Order panther's pack were more or less didn't stand a chance against the pack of bears and the number of bears had significantly dropped to just 5. As for the apes, there were only six remaining.
With the decrease in the number of targets they could attack some of them began to target the four humans who were on the immediate battlefield.
They began to close in, five bloodthirsty bears and six murderous apes.
However just before they could reach the group though, a pair of eyes flashed open with a fierce light revealing eyes too bright to be considered brown.
Huey Coleman had finished going through his Spirit Record, the wound on his shoulder was 40% healed so his movements weren't impeded in the least- he was more than ready to resume