Chapter 7 – A Brush with Death

Luke mulled over the varying amounts behind his experience gains.

Even if every higher monster level netted a huge amount more experience than the previous in some sort of logarithmic scale, that still didn’t explain how three monsters were equivalent to the single one that Luke defeated.

That left three options: the experience was split as the notification flat-out said it was, monsters that were turned into red-eyed creatures granted a large experience boost, or something else that Luke wasn’t seeing.

The notification stated that the monster granted bonus experience split between the group. He had to imagine that the System knew what it was about. It had to be deterministic, right?

That meant it used words meaningfully, and the fact it used bonus instead of extra had to mean something. Though Luke was at a loss as to what exactly that was.

For now, he could only guess that the experience was given a bonus, perhaps based on the number of combatants, and then divided by the remaining survivors?

A very, very dark thought popped into his head and he immediately squashed it before it had time to blossom.

Going by his original logic, that would mean that it wasn’t a straight split when fighting in a group, but the more people you added, the greater the split.

The lack of LP was telling. He gained 4 LP from killing the red-eyed beast. Overhearing the excited hushed conversations told him that everybody else had also received a single Loyalty Point.

So it’s not me.

There could be a floor to the LP gained, so everybody was guaranteed something. That could be exploited early on for some quick LP, but based on the scaling the System used, it would grow more useless over time.

He wasn’t sure if he had enough LP to purchase something good from the Company Shop, let alone enough to buy anything at all. The problem was, he wasn’t sure how to access it.

Maybe there was a level requirement to access the shop, or something else entirely.

Like with a lot of System interactions, the moment he thought about the Company Shop, a notification took up his vision.

Company Shop currently unavailable.

Time to Unlock: 2day, 23h:30m:17s

So the shop took more than a couple days to open up. Probably to avoid people using it immediately for whatever gains they might get. At least it gave him a chance accrue more LP.

It was all too possible that the Company Shop had limited stock. If a useful item could be sold out, he needed to get his hands on it before somebody else did.

No, not just somebody else. Another intern. We’re all trying to prove ourselves to the Company, whether we want to or not, Luke thought grimly. The Company’s influence was subtle and insidious. Even something as simple as the Company Shop held the potential to pit people against one another.

Luke shook his head and concentrated on the next thing to do.

He still had 4 free points to spend, and more notifications besides. He could feel them lurking in his logs like an itch that needed to be scratched.

Is it too late to use [Borrowing From the Future]? Judging by the timer on the Company Shop, he had killed it over ten minutes ago.

It felt like a day.

Something about the ability just… didn’t feel right. Obviously, the name wasn’t very optimistic, and it sounded like whatever Fate was, it might be pretty important to have as much of it as he could get his hands on.

That meant leaving his lone effective race skill alone for the time being. As it was, he had gained 3 Rogue levels and 1 Human level in less than thirty minutes. That was pretty damn good in his books.

If he understood the skill right, it would give him an extra +1 to all stats and maybe, if he was lucky, an extra free point. That meant 10 more stats, though 9 of those would be evenly split.

It seemed like a lot at first, but 3 Rogue levels had gained him 21 total stats, and each of them in an area that benefited his skill set.

Compared to even a single Rogue level where he gained 7 stats, it seemed myopic to the extreme to take away from an unknown stat to get a quick boost.

Better to go out and kill more things than to cannibalize a stat in order to get a small and early power boost.

What if the Fate stat was the near equivalent of luck? Luke doubted it was that simple, but if that was at all the case, he needed to keep his chances as high as possible.

Before setting his free points, Luke looked over his earlier notifications, his eyebrows climbing higher with each one.

Title earned: [A Brush With Death]

Through a twist of fate, you have survived what should have been a gruesome death. Your Marks have been updated. +1 Fate, +10 Vitality, +5% Vitality.

Luke’s eyes widened in astonishment.

So there was yet another way to earn stats and grow stronger in power. All he had to do was be extremely reckless and nearly die.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a surprising sense of satisfaction at earning that title.

Luke was so frequently forgotten by others, and yet the System recognized his feat. He managed to escape death, and in doing so, massively raised his Vitality. In the future, every point of Vitality would go that much farther.

Title earned: [First-Rate Soloer]

While you were not quick enough to grab the coveted First Blood title, you are the first to take down an enemy solo. Now the only way another can have this title is to take it from you. Your Marks have been updated. +1 Fate, +10% all stats.

Wow, [First-Rate Soloer] is an even better title than [A Brush With Death], Luke thought, seriously impressed by the massive increase to all stats.

Not just one title granted a point of fate, but two. A marked increase for a rather difficult to come by stat.

Titles certainly didn’t seem to be easy to earn, but what the stats they awarded were incredibly substantial. He idly wondered what the First Blood title gave, then something gave him pause.

Hold up, what? Somebody can kill me for my title?

The System, as usual, was unhelpful.

Despite the looming axe over his neck, Luke felt proud of himself. He had a title nobody else had. A title that gave him not only more Fate, furthering his belief that he should definitely not use his race skill to eat a point for a heap of stats.

The change wouldn’t be visible for a while, but it would continue to grow stronger with him rather than being a one-off boost.

Of course, that prompted Luke to give his status a look.

Status

Name: Luke Solus

Race: Human (G-Grade - Level 1)

Class: Rogue (Level 3)

Profession: N/A

Vital Resources

Health Points (HP): 146/170

Mana Points (MP): 50/50

Stamina Points (SP): 43/70

Stats

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 20

Endurance: 7

Fortitude: 6

Vitality: 17

Perception: 12

Willpower: 11

Wisdom: 5

Arcane: 7

Fate: 3

Free Points: 4

He nodded along as he scanned his stats. Clearly, Alice’s healing had worked wonders for him. His natural regeneration seemed fairly slow considering his stamina was still low, and he didn’t feel like he had over-extended himself.

More importantly, a few of his stats had grown since he last saw them. Did that mean the titles needed to be viewed and accepted before he could reap the benefits?

His Dexterity should have been high enough that he would have gained another point from the title’s addition.

Not that I was paying that close attention at the time, he admitted.

The added points to Vitality paid huge dividends and just added confirmation that every point of Vitality turned into 10 HP. By getting a free 10 points and then having those enhanced by a whopping +15% his Vitality was now his second-highest stat.

Considering he didn’t have much in the way of armor, he was glad that at least one of his weaknesses was now covered.

His lack of Endurance, and therefore stamina, was a bit concerning though. Nothing from Rogue enhanced it, and so far, his sole battle-skill used up his stamina, making it all the more important to have more of it.

Then again, if he could end the battle quickly, his lack of stamina wouldn’t matter. And that was the whole point behind Rogue, wasn’t it? High risk, high reward. If he wasn’t able to quickly kill then he’d be in trouble no matter what, wouldn’t he?

Now that his HP had grown so much in such a short period of time, he wanted to take advantage of his newfound tankiness and pump his Dexterity and Strength even higher so he could deal even more damage.

If he got caught out, he still had his large HP to rely on and a single potion if Alice was otherwise indisposed. That red-eyed monster meat also recovered some HP, but it seemed to have better uses than just that.

Besides, pocket monster meat wasn’t that appealing. Frowning, he reluctantly checked the inner pocket that raw meat was stored in, along with the other ones he looted from the additional monsters.

The smell wasn’t the best, but so far, the blood hadn’t seeped through the cloak. Perhaps it was waterproof?

He could only hope.

Luke spent all his free points, placing one in Strength and the others in Dexterity. Not only did he get more mileage out of Dexterity, but it felt good to be so fast.

Strength was still important. He relied on it for damage after all, but it didn’t matter if he wasn’t able to get close enough to attack. And that’s where Dexterity came into play.

What he needed more than anything was to establish a snowball effect. Get to the point where he can quickly dispatch threats, increase his experience yield, and then focus on shoring up his weaknesses.

In the beginning, it’d be tough, but those two titles helped immensely to bootstrap him to a higher power level. That, in turn, meant he could focus purely on damage output for the short term.

After all, he was part of a group. Even if he didn’t agree with everything they did or were planning, he couldn’t imagine how much harder it would be on his own.

The soothing warmth of power flowing through his veins invigorated Luke, bringing him out of his earlier funk from being ostracized.

He got a few dark looks as he joined the others at the center of the room. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near the shattered window or a wall.

There was no telling how strong a monster was. Maybe they could break through and snatch a person before they had any time to react. And so everybody was clustered in the center, talking low to avoid any further attention.

“Hey Luke,” Dexter said with a strained smile. “We were just talking about our new abilities, trying to work out what we could do to improve for next time, y’know?”

“Next time?” an Archer asked derisively. “There shouldn’t be a next time. We nearly got wiped out or were you not paying attention? There were 12 of us, dammit! Our first fight, and 4 dead, with 4 more seriously wounded. If not for Luke and Alice, we’d be dead. Did you see what happened to Francine? They just picked her up and dropped her like a sack of stones–”

Rachel, dressed in her bloodstained Mage robes, put a quieting hand on the man’s arm. “That’s enough, Edgar. We all saw. She didn’t deserve to die, least of all like that. But this is the reality we live in now. There are no meetings. No more business lunches or dictations. We have to fight for every minute we’re alive.” She gave Luke a dark look. “Without turning into monsters ourselves.”

Edgar snorted. “Luke was like the damned Flash out there, weaving in and out of those creatures and knocking them out of the sky! I didn’t see your magic doing much except hitting me in the back or whizzing into the air uselessly.”

Color rose on Rachel’s pale cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something, but just then Alice dropped into the circle looking like somebody dragged her backward through a hedge.

“Please don’t fight,” she said so quietly that Luke had to strain to hear her. “We’ve lost enough.” She sighed and looked over at the Gladiator. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”