Holding a broken bat in his hand, Azrael looked down at the blood spreading beneath his feet. In front of him, a huge, dead body with its limbs severed, lying down, broken fragments of the baseball bat protruding from different parts of its body, mostly on its back.
'This guy is pretty tough,' Azrael thought to himself as he threw away the handle of the bat, the broken thing now useless to him. Looking in front of him, he saw waves of undead rushing towards him, the sweet sound of the level-up notification deafening him from the cacophony of guttural screams the undead were creating.
[You killed a mutant nine levels higher than you, rewards: Five skill points]
[Took the essence of the Mutated Undead +20 all attributes (unallocated)]
[You level up. Reward +5 all attributes (unallocated)]
[You level up. Reward +5 all attributes (unallocated)]
[You level up. Reward +5 all attributes (unallocated)]
[You level up. Reward +5 all attributes (unallocated)]
[You level up. Reward +10 all attributes (unallocated)]
Looking at the last notification, Azrael grinned widely as his latter conjecture of the growth of additional attribute points per level being proportional to his previous increase rather than being linear with a rate of +1 were proven to be true, this means that his growth will only be more and more absurd from this point on, and the idea of this is getting him joyful.
[As an effect of the talent: Cellular Hypertrophy, the effects of the additional attribute points are also doubled]
After clicking on the unallocated attribute points, his smile got even wider as the notification about the effects of his talent popped up.
[Azrael Dragomir]
[Level: 11(125,620/200,000)]
[Talent: Cellular Hypertrophy Level 1 (30/100)]
[Strength: 270]
[Agility: 270]
[Vitality: 270]
[Stamina: 270]
[Mana: 270]
[Aptitude: 270]
[Skill/s: Basic Scan, Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts (Level 3), Throwing, Technician]
While waiting for the slow movements of the horde of undead approaching him, he took his time to look at his status screen again, clicking the unallocated skill points to start investing the points he got from the rewards in the [Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts] skill.
[Use 2 skill points to level up Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts? Y/N]
[Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts (Level 1) upgraded]
[Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts (Level 2) upgraded]
Approaching the waves of undead moving towards him, he picks up a wooden chair lying near him and smashed it right through the undead nearest to him, catching several others near it from the force of his attack, multiple notifications ringing through his mind as the undead fall on the ground.
[You killed an undead +5 xp]
[You killed an undead +5 xp]
[You killed an undead +5 xp]
[You killed an undead +5 xp]
[You killed an undead +5 xp]
As the notification ended, Azrael realized that it would take him too long to level up if he continued grinding this kind of mob, and even the massive amount of undead walking towards him might not be enough for him to level up even once, despite his xp bar already more than half full.
'Killing higher-level opponents really is the way to level up faster,' he thought to himself as he started planning methods to search for such opponents, all while still slaughtering the mass of undead gathering near him.
'I'll just count this as training,' Azrael convinced himself while he started executing the exercise from the True Life Sutra, trying to integrate the movements of the exercise into his battle style, his movements getting smoother and smoother as time went on.
The blade of the knife continues swinging, travelling in a beautiful, unhindered arc, leaving behind a trail of blood as it severs and decapitates everything that tries to block its way. While heads and body parts of the enemies fall down to the ground, the notification in Azrael's mind starts to turn into background noise, eventually getting drowned by the groans of the creatures surrounding him.
[You practiced a part of True Life Sutra while fighting for four hours +24 talent xp]
Once the last notification sounded, Azrael stopped on his track as he checked his status screen again, albeit being a bit disappointed, it was only as he expected, as the bunch of undead didn't even help him level up once, nor even contribute to filling his xp bar significantly.
He would've deemed his effort for the past four hours futile if not for the experience points he got for his talent, as well as some good things that come from grinding this long.
[Due to constant use, Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts (Level 3) level up]
[Due to constant use, Basic Scan (Level 0) level up]
[Congratulations on killing more than 1000 creatures, reward: Skill (Bloodlust Aura)]
[Bloodlust Aura (Advance Grade)]
[Level 1 (0/100]
[Gathers murderous aura around the user, applying pressure and terrified effect, reducing stats and attributes by 10%, to all the creatures with strength half or less than that of the user. The amount, strength, and range of the effects applied increase as the number of creatures the user kills increases. The aura can be turned on or off, as well as exclude or include targets of the effect independently]
After looking through all the benefits he gained from this fight, Azrael starts humming a tune again, walking confidently along the road as he searches for higher-level opponents to kill, the effects from the [Bloodlust Aura] making it so that lower-level creatures didn't even have the guts to move, not to mention approach in his presence.
----------
Moving in a forest that covers almost ten percent of the land where the Star Academy is situated, a tall, masculine figure skips across the branches of multiple trees swiftly, his movement completely natural as if he had moved his entire life this way.
If one were to be observant enough, it won't even get past their eyes the fact that all the branches the figure lands on didn't even move a single bit, as if the figure is weightless, just like a ghost moving through the woods hunting for its next prey.
"Hmm? That thing is a few levels higher than me," looking at a bird that just landed on a tree branch a few hundred meters away from him, the figure draws something from the inner pocket of his long coat.
Confirming that he grasps something in his hand, the figure swings his arm, the thing in his hand only leaving a bright flash from its smooth surface reflecting some of the sun's light, before it cuts through the wind towards the bird the figure just saw.
The bird didn't even manage to know its killer as the thing the figure throws cut through its neck completely, its head falling on the ground as its body lay flat on the tree branch.
[You killed a mutant two levels higher than you. Rewards: +30 talent xp]
[You level up. Reward +10 all attributes]
[You are now level 20. You met all the requirements for picking a class and completing your first ascension. You will not level up anymore unless you pick a new class and complete its related quest to ascend. However, it is still possible to grow stronger via attribute growth from cross-level killing.]
'Hunting higher level mutants really is better than killing normal undead…' he thought to himself as he recalls the previous days where he managed to acquire some bonus stats for himself as well, two that both gave him additional 5 points for all of his attributes, pushing his strength to an even greater height than he had initially predicted it to be once he reached the first threshold.
Looking at the notification in front of him, the figure smiles as he starts to realize just how much more benefit his talent can bring him once he levels it up some more, with the first talent level up bringing him quite the surprise when he reads the information about it.
[Your talent level up. Reward +0.1 to the current 2.1 times attribute multiplier]
So far, he had already leveled his talent twice, and this large bonus talent xp will save him as much as thirty hours of time practicing a unique exercise, five hours if he does so while fighting.
Opening his status screen, the young man smiles as scans his information, the strength he holds now more than enough to place him at the top of the Titan's food chain, not only his power, but also his level far leaving any human behind.
[Azrael Dragomir]
[Level: 20(100,000,000/100,000,000)]
[Talent: Cellular Hypertrophy Level 3 (180/400)]
[Strength: 490]
[Agility: 490]
[Vitality: 490]
[Stamina: 490]
[Mana: 490]
[Aptitude: 490]
[Skill/s: Intermediate Scan (Level 5), Intermediate Mixed Martial Arts (Level 8), Throwing (Level 9), Technician, Bloodlust Aura (Level 4)]