Chapter 169: The Next Step (3)

Vigor

By sacrificing one thousand points of SP every day and only once per day, it gives you the power to increase your max SP by one point.

Luke learned the skill and immediately tried it. As expected, it was tiresome to sacrifice his SP, but it wasn't as bad as sacrificing his HP. Not even close… in any case, Luke still had a lot of coins to spend, even though he could only buy tier seven skill books and below. He wondered why he didn't find other skills like Water Manipulation. Having the power to change the environment was useful. Still, it was even more useful than increasing his parameters without leveling up? He wasn't so sure about that… Regardless, once he has some spare gold coins, he will probably get it.

To add some elemental diversity to his attacks, Luke bought the skill boom Hurricane. It was as the same as Water Tornado, but it was made of wind. The name made the spell sound too powerful, but maybe it could become that powerful once it reaches higher levels and increases their rank. In any case, Luke searched in the shop and found his new sword there; it cost exactly 104 thousand gold coins. There wasn't a better weapon that he couldn't buy right now… at least when it comes to swords, and that was fine since Luke didn't want to master any other type of weapon. Still, he realized that his endurance was severely lacking. It was a pity, but he will have given up on the extra bonus of his boots that were granted in Dash for some extra defense. Maybe he also had to change his armor again…

In the end, Luke decided to safely store his old boots until the day he won't have to worry about his endurance anymore, and by using fifty-two thousand gold coins, he bought two pairs of gloves and boots. They were part of a set called mechanical, and they focused on endurance. Each set granted Luke twenty points in endurance, so he felt pretty strong by wearing them. They seemed a bit futuristic, like something someone would wear in a full set of red and yellow armor, but the color of those was white.

"I guess this is enough for the time being," Luke nodded to himself in satisfaction.

After using the shop, the group decided to camp and rest for a few hours, but as soon as the sun began to rise, they began to move again. It seemed a bit too harsh on the wounded, but they were feeling a lot better now that the temperature was increasing. Speaking of wounded, Richter woke up after a few hours on the second day. He was still tired physically, but he was feeling good enough to feel embarrassed for being carried by his sister. From Luke's perspective, he was lucky because it would be easier for her to carry him in her arms like a princess, but she carried him on his back.

"... So, it worked, huh," Richter said.

"Trying to play it cool," Luke frowned. "If I were you, I would bury my face on the ground for being carried by a woman at your age."

"No one asked you anything!" Richter roared and then almost passed out due to the dizziness.

"Don't force yourself to do anything, just rest." Rachel said. "We did it… so we can afford to take it easy for a few days."

Again, Luke wasn't so sure about that, but it would be better not to spoil the moment of those siblings… they finally achieved their first goal, after all. In any case, soon everyone would understand that things were way worse than expected, even Luke.

It didn't take long for the group to find some vehicles to transport everyone. Things became even easier when Luke melted the snow and ice ahead with his Flamethrower. However, he soon learned that using Water Manipulation was more efficient. He could obtain control over a lot of ice and snow and still use a small amount of mana just by opening a path ahead by making the ice and snow move to the sides of the road. However, they soon found another problem: monsters. Now that the ice goblin was dead, the monsters felt like they could take over the entire area, and since their convoy was rather big, they were attacked many times. Fortunately, the tactic that Luke devised for the battle worked even there. The survivors used Electric Arrows and killed the monsters before they could cause too much trouble.

"Is it everywhere like this?" Rachel asked while she was driving one of the trucks, and Luke was flying with Artiuno.

"I didn't explore the entire country… only the southern and eastern side," Luke replied. "However, in that region, the number of monsters was relatively small because we hunted and destroyed the crystals. However, in this region, the overlords are hiding their crystals better. So, I am having a hard time finding them. Thus, decreasing their numbers is difficult. I also explored a bit of Europe and South America, but the monsters and the crystals didn't feel the need to hide themselves."

Congratulations! You have obtained a follower.

Luke frowned when he received that message out of nowhere… It seemed that Arcnine's egg finally hatched. In any case, Rachel didn't like what she heard. She felt even eager to head south now, but she couldn't be that egoistic, even more so considering that Luke was on a mission. Where he was supposed to help more than one group of people. Still, despite some encounters, the trip had been fairly calm. The monsters became even less troublesome when Richter joined the group on the second day of travel. The snow was left behind, but the environment didn't become that colorful. Even from very far away, Luke could see the sky had become brownish-red… and they were moving toward that same direction.. Something also had happened to Chicago… Luke's luck was really the worst.