[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 37: Progress

Now that he was alone, Sam pulled up his stats before he got started and selected his bonus point allotment.

With the Void Path unlocked, Sam now potentially had a broader use for stat allocation if the talents were any hint. At the same time, the Fighter Job and the Void Path both appeared to double down on Strength and Vigor.

Which suited him just fine.

That also applied to his new Art, [Scour]. Since it gave bonuses to both Strength and Insight, he figured that might mean those two stats modified how well the Art performed.

With 3 bonus points to spend, Sam pulled up his Status to see where he might best put them.

He still had no idea how fast he was supposed to be leveling, but it didn’t seem too shabby to already be nearing level 10 in his Job, much less to unlock a Path.

If the percentage unlocks were a level each—as he imagined they might have been—then he should have been level 12 or more.

But he couldn’t help wondering how his friends were doing, or even some of his rivals from various HEMA tournaments. Were they putting their training and skills to good use, or had they decided to throw down their swords and pick up something less mundane?

I did, in a way, he thought as he perused his stats. Choosing a greatsword seemed fitting while also being similar enough that I didn’t feel like I was starting from scratch.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Adventurer (Lv.3 - Unranked)]

Job: [Fighter (Lv.8 - Unranked)]

Path: [Void (Lv.2 - Unranked)]

Profession: [N/A (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Health(HP): [122/134]

Mana(MP): [40/53]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★ Legendary IV)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (★ Common I)

[Metal Mana] (F-Class) (☆ Primitive)

Physical Stats

Strength(STR): 29 (+4)

Dexterity(DEX): 20 (+1)

Agility(AGI): 17

Vigor(VIG): 32 (+4)

Awareness(AWR): 10 (+1)

Magical Stats

Arcane(ARC): 9

Control(CTL): 6

Resonance(RSN): 11

Mind(MND): 12

Insight(INS): 7

Not for the first time, Sam wondered why his Void mana called itself an “Apocalypse Gate”. That had always struck him as unnecessarily ominous.

Then again, he had no other attunements to compare to.

It wasn’t as if there was anything he could do about it. It had been sink or swim with his Path and he wasn’t going to go through everything he had just to give up because some power seemed too dangerous.

Better in my hands than somebody else’s, Sam thought to himself. Which, he added, I’m sure everybody with a weapon of mass destruction within arm’s reach has thought since the dawn of time.

But that was enough pontificating on who or what should have destructive power. It was clear to Sam that this new way of life was far more different than he had originally thought.

There was no reason to fret over something that was already done. The best he could do was press on and hope to control it rather than let it control him.

Without dwelling on it further, he returned to studying his stats.

Now that’s a nice bump in HP, Sam thought with a smile. He was well and truly over 100 HP now, though clearly even with resting after the battle and Komachi’s [Regen] spells, he was still taking some time to heal up.

Still no idea how Vigor factors into more HP. Not that math was ever his specialty, but he would have liked to know.

Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Sam pondered what the best move to make with his bonus points was. While 3 stat points didn’t seem like a whole lot, that was effectively half of a Fighter level, which was getting harder to come by.

At least, that’s how it felt.

I should’ve gotten more Fighter levels, he thought to himself, still sour about his Void Path taking so much Experience to unlock. Then again, if levels are slowing down for me while facing something so large, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing if they were used to unlock a new source of power.

It would mean that others who weren’t in a Dark Vault like him would likely be running up against their first “wall” in terms of progression pretty soon.

Without a Path or Profession, most people would find themselves slowing down a great deal while Sam could use his newfound Void Path as a way to continue progressing through easier lower levels.

He was still trying to figure out how Legends worked into everything. The Status sheet alone showed that it was something separate from his Job, Path, and Profession.

It was clearly given a place of prominence in the Status sheet as the first metric of levels that you would see.

That’s grasping at straws though, Sam thought. With a shrug, he brought himself back around to the question at hand. Should he continue to invest the majority of his points in the four stats that seemed to stand out for his Path, two of which were also important for his Job?

Alternatively, he could shore up his weaknesses.

His Arcane was pathetically low, but even that was higher than his Insight. Both stats were used—how, he wasn’t sure yet—by his Void Path, so they had to do something, right?

I bet I’ll never have enough stats to spread where I need them, Sam thought as he went back and forth on what to put his three bonus points into.

For some reason, it just felt wrong to have a stat that seemed integral to his Path that was so low. It was like avoiding an aspect of yourself.

There was the possibility, too, that perhaps Fighter would somehow take his choices into account and change in some way. He highly doubted that he would be stuck as a Fighter forever.

If only because the description of the Job had stated it was considered a “First Order Job” which suggested—rather strongly—that there was a Second Order, and more beyond.

And if that was the case, then surely it also meant that he could influence the way his Job grew from First Order to Second Order.

For the time being, the stats Fighter offered—even with bonus points—was just never going to be enough to increase the stats he needed for his Path.

Something needed to change in order to balance out Sam’s stats and thoroughly increase his power in all areas of his specialty.

Perhaps Professions could work in harmony with Paths, but he doubted that. They didn’t seem combat focused, what little he understood of them, and Jobs were.

If he kept dumping points into his Fighter’s preferred stats, then how would he be any different from every other Fighter out there? Everybody wants to differentiate themselves, and Sam was no exception.

Shoring up my weaknesses it is, he said to himself. Sam dropped all three bonus points into Insight.

The effects were immediate, though curiously hard to pin down. With Strength or Agility, he could feel the difference in the way he moved, but taking Insight from 7 to 10 didn’t alter his body.

His senses felt a little sharper, however, and he was keenly aware of Komachi nearby scratching herself with her back paw and then in a moment of prescience, knew that she would begin attacking the foot a moment before she did it.

That might have been something he would have already known was going to happen because of his history with her, but this felt different. It felt certain, as if he had glimpsed slightly into the inner workings of his cat and saw when that first domino falling.

With everything that Sam had gone over for his stats, it had only taken a minute or two to allocate his bonus points into Insight.

Enough time that Komachi had already devolved into her own antics, but not so long that she was bored enough to start clawing his legs for attention.

“All right Komachi,” Sam told her. “You ready?”

He double checked his challenge quest.

Challenge Quest: Breaking in the Breaker

Awakening your bloodline is only the beginning of your journey. Every road to greatness starts with but a single step. This is yours.

Perform the following:

Practice with your greatsword for 4 hours.

Visualize a critical weak point 4 times. (Complete)

Create a critical weak point 4 times on an inanimate object. (Complete)

Create a critical weak point 4 times on a living creature. (Complete)

That was different too, hadn’t his quest not shown that anything was completed before? He distinctly recalled that it wasn’t very forthcoming.

Maybe that’s something my higher Insight improved?

It wasn’t as if he could just ask Raiko about it, though. She was new to all of this as well. Not to mention that she wasn’t even around.

Still, more information from quests wasn’t a bad thing.

With just one more objective to go before he completed the quest, Sam was looking forward to finishing it. Hopefully, it would have some kind of reward, even if he was gaining greater mastery over his bloodline just by participating in this challenge quest.

Maybe a new greatsword? Then again, I do like the one I have. But would I really keep using it if I found a higher rarity greatsword?

Probably not, but he’d definitely compare the two weapons against each other and see if a higher rarity weapon truly performed that much better.

He was curious about the difference between rarity and enhancements, particularly whether it was possible if one weapon’s enhancements could beat another’s greater rarity.

To find that out, he’d need more weapons.

This area of the Dark Vault was cleared of enemies and appeared to be otherwise sectioned off from the rest of the starting island. No ogre had shown up after all.

So, this was the perfect place to finish off that last objective. And maybe try out a few new things as well.

How many more opportunities would he get to test out his newfound powers without worrying about hurting somebody, or worse, being attacked by a monster?

After all, throwing out waves of mana was sure to attract a hungry monster. He might as well light a signal flare and hold up a brightly lit sign pointing out his location.

But here? There were ruins floating about, but nothing that looked immediately dangerous. It was a golden opportunity.

Though he was more physically built than he had any right to be, Sam owed much of it to his menial—yet physically demanding—job as a stocker.

His understanding of training came mostly from his attempts to rank in various HEMA tournaments. And though he had a promising start, that was over now, and he had to accept it.

The reality was that fighting monsters was vastly different from fighting in a tournament.

There were no rules.

Nothing to stop him from fighting dirty except his own desire to live. As Sam took out his greatsword and held it in both hands, he realized what he needed to do was adapt to his new environment.

And practicing forms and styles that dated back to Joachim Meyer was not going to cut it. He needed to invent his own style that suited his new powers and abilities.

Even disregarding the fact that he could literally use magic, he was able to wield a sword of comical proportions with greater ease than the ultra-light training swords back home.

And as he looked at the flat edge of the charred blade, Sam had an idea.