When I arrived at the village, I wasn't even breathing hard. That was another gift of the Tower for people on the First Floor, endless stamina. It was unfortunate none of these gifts came with us when we climbed.

I found the two warriors who were supposed to be guarding my village leaning on the wall, talking to each other without a care in the world. There was fifty yards of clearing between the forest and the entrance. The first one of them to notice me only did when I was thirty yards away.

He instantly stood up straight and the other followed. I ignored their laziness because doing something about it would consume too much time. I passed by them and dropped the boar and the rabbit in the corridor, beside the pile of throwing stones.

"You should have a stone on hand at all times," I told them. "Don't let me catch you barehanded again." A warning should suffice for now.

Back to the forest, I started hunting again.

I had promised meat for all of my people and I would deliver.

 

---

 

My midair roundhouse kick hit the owl's head, instantly killing it.

 

Skill unlocked: Novice Kicking
Level: 1 / 10
Type: Physical
Attribute: Any
Effects:
» When kicking:
     » +1.8% (0.1 + 1.7) damage

 

That was it, the last skill I needed to unlock the skill set I was aiming for.

 

Skill set discovered: Offensive Martial Arts
Combines [13] skills:
» Punching
» Twisting
» Hand Chopping
» Hand Thrusting
» Palm Striking
» Head-Butting
» Shin Striking
» Elbow Striking
» Back Fisting
» Clawing
» Poking
» Knee Striking
» Kicking

 

Skill set unlocked: Novice Offensive Martial Arts
Level: 1 / 10
Type: Physical
Attribute: Any
Effects:
» When using any offensive martial arts movement:
     » +1.8% (0.1 + 1.7) damage

 

Skills that could form sets had a "theme" to them and would always have the same effects. All the skills in the [Offensive Martial Arts] set provided bonus damage when using some weaponless move, and they all used the same formula for their effects.

Now that I had unlocked the set, the skills still existed individually, but their effects were superseded by the skill set's effects. This also meant the set's attribute, which was "any" physical one, supplanted the individual skills' attributes. For instance, the [Twisting] skill's attribute was strength, but because of the skill set, even agility of constitution would improve its effects now.

From now on, I couldn't individually level up [Kicking] or [Punching] anymore, I had to level up the entire set. Because the set had thirteen skills, it was thirteen times as hard to level it up.

However, the set recognize any usage of its skills to level it up. If I kept [Punching] until it counted as enough to level up the skill from level 1 to 2 thirteen times, the entire set would level up and thus, my [Kicking] skill would also grow stronger!

Another advantage was free TP. Leveling up skills gave TP and the skill set was also considered a skill. So, when I leveled up [Offensive Martial Arts], I'd get all the TP from its thirteen skills plus the AP for the [Offensive Martial Arts] skill itself. The same was true for unlocking the skill set.

 

TP received
+10 TP — Unlocked a skill (x2)
Total TP: 74

 

For all of this, skill sets were usually dubbed something nice in all resets, like divine shortcut, cheat set, free happiness, or great loophole.

For me, what I liked the most about it was how it hid all individual skills from my status and showed only the skill set instead. The number of skills it combined was also shown in parenthesis. Really, it made things much more manageable.

 

Status
Name: Black Reaper
Power: Novice 17
Titles: Awakened — Precursor

Attributes
[TP: 74]
Physical
    Strength: 17 — Agility: 17 — Constitution: 17
Spiritual
    Pool: 17 — Regeneration: 17 — Control: 17
Social
    Charisma: 17 — Persuasion: 17 — Presence: 17

Skills
Physical
    Novice Fist Fighting — 5 / 1
    Novice Sprinting — 3 / 10
    Novice Climbing — 1 / 10
    Novice Projectile Throwing — 1 / 10
    Novice Offensive Martial Arts (13) — 1 / 10
Spiritual
    Novice Essence Sensitivity — 5 / 10
    Novice Essence Infusion — 5 / 10
Social
    Novice Leadership — 2 / 10

 

In the past three hours, I had unlocked many new physical skills, improved a couple of the ones I already had, improved my spiritual skills, and leveled up all my attributes by one. That was incredible progress to most, but for me it only served as proof of how easy it was to level up skills before Novice 5.

I was kind of cheating too. I remembered how all physical skills looked and felt like at much higher tiers and levels. While my current body couldn't perfectly copy them, I knew what the Tower wanted to "see" to recognize the movements and turn them into skills or level them up.

Moreover, the System Manual said skills were more easily unlocked through battle, but it went beyond. Killing made it even easier to unlock skills and killing things in one hit using a single movement all but guaranteed the skill to unlock. I should be the only one who knew about this for now, which gave me a big head start.

Now that I had unlocked this physical skill set, I should focus on unlocking a spiritual one. I didn't even consider taking the owl to the village, leaving it behind to search for a tastier, meatier target.

That's when my trip was interrupted by an unexpected encounter.

A male corpse was hanging by the neck from a tree, held by a vine. Its intimate parts had been removed and put on its mouth. The words "NO INTRUDERS" had been cut into his chest.

So, someone had made a small sovereign area in my turf.

Time to explain to them why that was a terrible idea.

As I walked the direction of the corpse, I [Infused] my eyes and ears with essence, making my vision sharper and hearing better. I wanted to be ready for anything they threw my way. I also took a fist-sized stone from the ground, ready to attack or counterattack at a distance.

My other hand held my stone knife in a fist. I didn't plan on using it unless required, because of my plans that required me to be a weaponless fighter.

I considered removing the corpse from the tree, as it was a challenge to my authority, but I left it there. It was also good advertising for the safety my village provided.

A few yards in, I heard voices. I couldn't distinguish what they were saying at first, but then I heard the rhythmically singing of a male.

"Rip, and tear, and slash, and cleave,

Kill the evil, maim brave,

This is not an easy world,

But who cares? We're fed!"

Violence. I thirsted for violence. And it wasn't something that came from me, but an external feeling forced on me.

I recognized the clear signs of a class. But a class could only be unlocked from the Tenth Floor onwards except if one [Wished] for it. The conclusion was obvious.

There was a true Chosen in my village.

"When they come to take our women,

When they come for our children,

We'll fight back with bloody anger,

We'll show them their death!"

His voice felt pleasant to the ears. As I approached, I saw a big bonfire surrounded by about seven people who were dancing around it in a tribal way. Only one of them sung, the [Bard] or maybe [Singer].

Well, there were other possibilities for his class, but they were rare and couldn't be unlocked before the Twentieth Floor. The First Floor was almost completely isolated from the rest of the Tower, it limited even the gods' powers. All classes the Chosen received in here had to be common ones.

The rarer classes would appear on the Second Floor. Still, because of the nature of the Second Floor, classes would only become widespread knowledge when people reached the Third Floor.

From the Third Floor onwards though, it would become a dick-measuring contest between the Chosen for who had the best class. A contest that would claim the lives of many of the common people.

The carnage would continue until the Tenth Floor, when all others could unlock their own classes and put a stop to the Chosen.

One of the reasons I had to conquer my village earlier on was to use the system to decrease the damage the Chosen would cause to me and mine. Only sheer numbers would work against them until we had classes.

"Come and fight me, come and die,

I am going to fuck you nice,

I am Drake, the almighty brave,

Come and die at my big blade."

That's why before I left for the Second Floor, I would teach my people many things. Foremost among them all was that [Class Holders] were dangerous and if the opportunity arose, they should be killed as soon as possible.

"Come and serve the Hero Drake,

Come and fight for my glory's sake,

We will kill and tear and rip,

Lay the enemies at my feet."

The song was really getting to me. I was already feeling the compulsion to become one of his men. But thankfully, I had already gotten in position to get a clear shot at the [Bard]. I aimed my stone and threw it with all my might.

As with the pebble, it instantly broke the sound barrier. Unlike the pebble, it didn't disintegrate soon after.

The stone flew true. The [Class Holder] was hit straight in the head. To my surprise, it blew up just like the blonde I killed by the apple trees. It wouldn't if he had been an [Awakener], but it looked like the guy was too coward to kill himself.

Well, he had called himself brave and a hero in his song. People who did that were usually cowards.

The compulsion to serve him didn't immediately die with him, but it didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that I was still feeling violent, and I was in a target-rich environment.

I leaped at the six men, who had bloodshot eyes and angry faces.

And then the death dance started.

They were all [Awakeners], but they couldn't fight properly.

My first punch sunk into the first man's head instead of exploding it, such was the power of seven points of constitution against my might.

He still died though.

An income punch made me lower my body to dodge it. I followed by upper cutting another guy. His chin visited his nose from the inside, and his neck snapped.

Dead.

I had to twist my body and move sideways to avoid the next blows and then, still twisting, jumped and introduced the man's nape to my right knee. His nape enjoyed socializing so much it sunk into his head to meet his eyeballs too.

Dead.

Of the four remaining people, three stopped to think and the last one came at me. I invaded his personal space, using my arm to deflect his pathetic punch, held him by the head, and threw him at two others like a rag doll. They all fell on the ground.

The guy I threw died from a broken neck.

The one still standing turned to run. I leaped at him and kicked his neck. It snapped loudly.

Dead.

The last two living guys on the ground, I stomped. One in the head, the other in the heart.

Dead and deader.

That was it. A swift massacre. There had been nothing they could've done differently to avoid their fate.

And o my relief, my head was clearing now.

Yes, clearing. I had been utterly controlled by the song's bloodlust, despite my attributes. After all, there was no mental attribute to protect myself with.

Persuasion was the scariest attribute because it was somewhat hard to unlock mind-protecting skills. Skills that manipulated the mind were three times as scary. My eight hundred years of life and Tower experience didn't matter against that.

I hadn't even thought of resisting the skill because such thoughts were the first things these skills took from the target. If I hadn't already been planning to kill the people in the area and if I weren't used to kill the most dangerous foes first, I'd be dancing to his tune now.

Forever.

The good thing was that I knew how to unlock [Minor Mental Resistance] on the Third Floor. The terrible thing was that it might kill me, or worse, enslave me for good. That was one of the two lethal situations I'd find before meeting Sophie.

Alas, it was required for my plans. First, because I was dealing with people and managing a territory in this reset, so I'd soon run in other people who could mind control me. Second, because she had a mind controlling class herself.

And as if that weren't bad enough, I had an ever bigger and more immediate problem.

When a god Chose people, they always did in pairs. Pairs that were always placed together in the same village. And when one of them was killed, the other received a [Quest] to take revenge on the murderer.

I, on the other hand, had just received a [Hidden Quest] to kill the one hunting me. I shouldn't know about it until I either completed it or was killed, but thanks to the [Class Holder], I was aware this time.

There was a hidden enemy in my village.

A Chosen who wanted my head.

I had no doubts he would try to kill me sooner or later; the rewards promised by the [Quest] were just too good to refuse. Moreover, the [Quest] didn't have a time limit and the rewards would grow even better the stronger I became. The more time passed, the more tempted by it they would become, until they acted on it.

Plenty of people would try to kill me in the future, but now I had the chance to cut a problem at its root and be rewarded for it.

Getting some key spiritual skills became an even higher priority now.

I would need them to hunt a little rat.