Stars erupted in Liam's vision, and he lurched forward, landing flat on his face. To say it hurt would be an exaggeration. Liam was in more pain than he'd ever experienced before in his entire life. He writhed on the ground for a moment before coming back to his senses. He felt a large presence behind him and, fearing it was an Unseen, he scrabbled at the ground, trying to find purchase with his fingernails and, now bare, feet. He couldn't find it, however, as the ground was covered in a thin layer of extremely soft dirt, so he just turned around to face his death. He wanted to at least try to see the impossible before it ate him, however what he saw when he turned around was almost scarier than an Unseen, almost.
It was his father, fist bawled, anger very very visible on his meaty face. He was just about to strike Liam again when Liam, aware there were two ways of stopping this, kowtowed in front of him. The only way of stopping this tirade was to show that he had surrendered. At least that would give him enough time to escape. His father stopped the move, grunting in response to his surrender. That was all the indication that Liam needed, continuing his kowtow, he slowly backed up; once he'd gotten his feet under him, he took off down the path, running as fast as his bare feet would carry him through the forest. He knew his father wouldn't chase him very far, so he kept running for about 500 meters before slowing down to a brisk walk.
It should probably be mentioned that Liam's house, well his father's house, was located well off the beaten path in the middle of a shabby little clearing to the northwest of the checkpoint to enter the main city. It was about four kilometers from the checkpoint, but the worst thing was that Liam couldn't actually enter the inner city because you needed to be able to pay for a pass to enter. The passes started at 5,000 wol (A.N.: 100 wol = $15). His father was barely able to scrounge together 5 wol at a time, and that was either used on alcohol or Pound, so there was no way that Liam was getting into the inner city anytime soon. Anyone that tried to sneak into the inner city or was caught inside the city without a pass would be sent right back out, directly towards a known den of Goblins.
The outer city was pretty alright though, so Liam didn't mind. There were plenty of people in a similar situation to his father, either addicted to Pound, or just poor. There wasn't much wol circulating outside the walls, so it was hard to save up the wol needed to enter the city unless you came from another city, or rode on someone else's wealth. About 3 million people existed in the many kilometers surrounding the inner city, although none lived near the Goblin den. None except for Liam and his father. Although they weren't right next to the den, they were undoubtedly the closest out of anyone that Liam could remember. But enough of that, Liam needed some food. He had no money, so he couldn't order anything from any nearby restaurants, but he could forage. Liam loathed killing, so foraging would have to do for now. He knew of a couple edible plants in the area so he set about looking for those.
On his journey he got a couple more unexpected notifications, although they were starting to become more common.
<1/5,000 Power>
Calculating...
(A.N.: Formula Used For Calculating Power: prevPower += prevPower*(2^numThingsKilled))
Final Stats:
<1/5,000 Power>
<2,231,361/5,000,000 Talent>
Liam could see the number growing astronomically large at an outrageous pace. If other people knew about this growth, they'd surely be jealous. However, Liam was confused about one thing. If his talent kept growing with each additional kill, didn't that mean that he should feel stronger? But he didn't feel stronger, when his father hit him he was down for the count, he could barely move. It was a miracle he escaped that situation alive, and he'd already gained 60,000% his waking talent. So what gives? How could he get stronger? Both questions were those that Liam agreed to ponder more after he found some food, so he continued on.
Liam ended up finding some berries that his mind said were okay to eat, they were called pillow berries. And they'd surely felt like pillows to eat, it was very unsatisfying, but somehow very filling. Now Liam was sat in front of a very large tree pondering how he could get stronger. It seemed that no matter how many things he killed, his power wouldn't grow past 1. So he figured that he'd have to do something to get it to go up. The first thing he tried was meditating, it always seemed to work in his favorite wuxia novels so why wouldn't it work for him. He tried for about half an hour but no luck. He couldn't even feel energy inside himself, he only felt his heart beating faster and faster as he imagined returning home with no power of his own. He moved on to working out, exercise is good for the body, maybe it's good for power too? No luck once again.
Liam had been at this for hours, he'd just kept trying things that came to his mind. Anything to wake up the dormant power that he just knew he had. Finally, he tried something that he'd seen in an old Chinese movie, Tai Chi. A method of moving your body that directs the energy inside it. He'd seen the actors achieve some really impressive magic using it... well, impressive for an '80's movie. He'd always wanted to try it but he figured it would only make the bullying worse if anyone found out he was doing this. But now seemed like a good a time as any to start trying it out.
He brought his hands together at his belly button like he'd seen the actors do, focusing on his inner energy... well, his prospective inner energy. He pulled his hands apart in a fluid motion, one hand, his left, moving up and towards the left. His right hand moved the opposite direction, down and to the right, almost as though he was stroking the neck of some imaginary horse. He reversed the action, bringing his hands together again. This was the only move he knew, and he was hoping and praying it was enough. Thankfully, unlike the last two hours, he was correct this time. Hopes and prayers seemed to be the answer on this occasion as he felt some sliver of warmth in his abdomen, before it quickly spun up into a warm sphere right above his belly button. It was spinning quickly, and beating with each beat of Liam's heart.
Liam felt his excitement growing as he continued the movements. He could feel the sphere growing ever so slightly every movement. He felt it pause, ever so slightly, but it paused. No longer was his core growing. Pondering for a moment while unconsciously continuing his previous movements, he realized that he must've only been drawing in limited energy with his single movement. Although he didn't know any other 'official' Tai Chi movements, he began waving his arms around him in that same flowy fashion until something just popped. It was a light pop, but a wind that seemed to come from him as the origin, blew the leaves around him into a small tornado. He was so startled, he stopped his movements. The small tornado kept moving for a few seconds until it calmed down, and the leaves dropped to the ground. Liam felt his excitement reach a maximum as he thought of his system window, willing it to pop up as he'd read many characters of his favorite books doing. It popped up right in front of him, the power now displaying something far more interesting.
<2,226,361/1,000,000,000 Power>
He'd broken through to F rank! Wait... what was that?