Chapter 317 - 311 : Getting Stronger

*Whoosh*

After passing through a wormhole opened up by Worrus, Sato and Meson had returned to the Hall of Achievers.

Glancing at the stone statues that seemed to have existed for centuries, Sato sighed as he recalled how difficult the Achievers' trials were for him and Xue Yan. The current him would be able to take down that Achiever without a hitch but this was because the Achiever's power limit was set to match the combination of the previous him and Xue Yan. Put in another way, the current Sato could defeat the former him and Xue Yan. Calling him the strongest player in IR by both attributes and levels wasn't an understatement.

"It's already 6:35 pm." Sato opened up his system interface and glanced at the time.

The date was currently 5th August, which is two weeks after Infinite Realm's release. In-game, this would be the same as a month. So much time had passed so quickly that Sato didn't realise it.

'I wonder how Xue Yan is doing.'

Even with the 1-week training session that the gang experienced, the increase in strength wasn't much in Sato's point of view. While they did increase their levels considerably, for Sato, levels weren't everything in a game. One's strength also depends on their equipment as well as their martial prowess. If a player's hand-to-hand combat skills or weapon handling were terrible, then even if they were 5 levels ahead of their opponent, they could still lose the battle.

Xue Yan had barely had a week to improve her combat skills with Sato and recalling that the third challenge was to face one's self in combat, Sato didn't have much hope of her passing. There was also the second challenge's [Labyrinth of Helios] but since the first two challenges differed for every participant, Sato didn't know whether Xue Yan had things easy or difficult.

Sato decided to then ask Meson about her.

"Snow Bird?[1] I don't have enough authority so I wasn't able to watch the trials with Lords Worrus and Saimon. However, Lord Saimon did inform me that you might ask about a female companion. According to him, she started her third Challenge just a few minutes after you did, so she should be out in a couple of hours." Meson replied.

"Alright." Sato nodded.

Before he would proceed to inform the crew of their next actions, Sato had to wait for Xue Yan to be present.

'Time to check my gains.'

Ever since he had finished the final challenge, Sato was too occupied to check all the rewards he had earned. He was met by Saimon just a short while after he had finished off the mirror image and was then taken away to the seal by Worrus. After that, he had to retrieve the sword at the top of the altar following which he was brought to the pagoda by Worrus, where he met Meson and finally was brought back here. Throughout all these events, Sato didn't have enough time to check his rewards and calculate the value of his gains.

'Let's start with you.'

Saving his last reward, the black sword [Drakken], for last, Sato opened up his system interface and glanced at his status.

[[ System interface :

Name : Sky Blade

Race : Human

Bloodline : Chosen Ones

Title(Active) : Savior of Races

Other titles(Inactive) : Citizen of Fallen Heart Kingdom, Humanity's Friend, The Precursor, Industrious Achiever.

Level : 15

HP : 1500

Heritage/Legacy : The Caventry's Inheritor

Class (Job) : Apprentice Swordsman (Specialist)

Subclass : Apprentice Blacksmith

Kingdom : Fallen Heart Kingdom

Current location : Great Hall of Grey Chaplains

Attributes

Strength : 24 + 4 (Dawn Steel Armour) + 10 (Astral Blade)

Endurance : 16 + 2 (Dawn Steel Armour)

Vitality : 15

Agility : 13 + ??? (???)

Dexterity : 12 + ??? (???)

Intelligence : 1 + ??? (???) 

Willpower : 6

Physical Attack Power : 72 + 12 (Dawn Steel Armour [Strength] boost) +30 (Astral Blade [Strength] boost) + 25 (Astral Blade)

Magical Attack Power : 3 + ??? (??? [Intelligence] boost)

Physical Defence : 36 + 22 (Dawn Steel Armor)

Magical Defence : 12 + 15 (Dawn Steel Armor)

Attack Speed : 36 + ??? (??? [Dexterity] boost) + 12 (Astral Blade)

Movement Speed : 26 + ??? (??? [Agility] boost)

Free Attribute Point : 15

Free Potential point : 2

Skills :

Chop : Active Skill : Launch a heavy strike with full force, causing additional 20% damage. Cool-down : 5 seconds

Parry : Active Skill : Use 110% of [Strength] to block a skill. Success depends on [Strength] rating of both user and target. Cool-down : 5 seconds.

Horizontal Swipe : Active Skill : Release a horizontally positioned attack wielding an additional 40% attack power. Cool-down : 15 seconds.

Linear Strike : Active Skill : Using one thrust or slash, deal 150% of attack power in one hit. +10% to penetrative abilities. Cool-down : 10 seconds.

Chain Hit : Active Skill : release 3 strikes equaling 140% attack power with 130% attack speed. Cool-down : 15 seconds.

Others(Weapon, equipment, or title related attached skills) :

Gratitude of Races : Active Skill :

Receive a temporary boost to abilities and skills +1

All attributes +5

Defence increases + 10

Attack speed increases + 10

Damage dealt multiplies x1.5

Healing speed x1.5

Cool-down : 3 days.     

System : The gratitude of a race shouldn't be taken lightly much less that of multiple races.

Note : This skill is upgradeable.

Astral Blessings : Passive : If used under the skies with the stars as the canopy, user's attributes increase by 5%. Also passively gather energy from the stars.

Astral Might : Passive Skill : One's aura becomes as overbearing as the stars affecting the combat abilities of their opponent. Effect differs based on the difference in user and target's level, [Endurance] and [Willpower].

Astral Blade : Active Skill : Using the energy gathered from the stars, unleash an attack with a devastating might. Cool-down : 10 astral points

??? : Unregistered

Equipment and weapons

Astral Blade : Upper tier Mortal Class : Level 9 : Durability : 35

Dawn Steel Armor (Plate Armor) : Upper Tier Mortal Rank : Level 5 : Durability 40

??? : Unregistered

Novice Swordsman Leather Trousers

Novice Swordsman Gloves

Novice Swordsman Shoes

]]

The previous injuries on his body after the fight with the mirror image had already healed. This was after Sato had taken some health potions along with a special pill Meson had given him slightly after they met.

After crossing the level 10 checkpoint, players, NPCs, and monsters would experience a qualitative change. The multiplication factor for the secondary attributes would also increase and this was especially so for the HP stat. This was because, for the two parties(players and NPCs), they would longer go by the title of Beginner, but would be promoted to the next sub-rank, which is the Apprentice rank.

For players, their [Vitality] would no longer be multiplied by 10 to give their HP but instead by 100. [Endurance] and [Willpower] would be multiplied by 2 for Physical and Magical Defence stats, and [Intelligence] by 100 for MP. Overall, the change in multiplication index increased the battle endurance of players and made it possible for them to squash players below level 10 even if they both had the same attributes.

'I will have to make a visit to a Swordsman guild and make it official.'

While Sato had indeed gotten promoted, NPC forces would still identify him as a Beginner rank swordsman. This was because Sato had yet to make the change official. To do so, he would have to visit a sword-related guild or association and get identified as one. Sato could either go to the City's Army barracks, a registered sword art dojo in the game or find some popular sword hermit to test him and register him as an Apprentice.

'There's no sword art dojo here. I think I will wait till I get to the city.'

After settling on that problem, Sato further inspected his status panel. Seeing the Legacy section no longer empty, a smile crept upon his lips. 

Currently, Sato's status could be said to be the most complete as well as the most impressive in the game. Not only was he level 15 but he also had a Legacy, 4 titles[2], and was already an apprentice in both his main class and subclass.

After reveling in his stats, Sato then glanced at his free attribute points.

There were two methods of assigning attributes points in IR; the system suggested/recommended path and the manual selection mode.

If Sato had used the system suggested levelling up method, the attribute points would have been allocated automatically and he would have no free attribute points. But because he chose manual selection mode, Sato could distribute each point by himself to whatever attribute that he saw fit and he could even leave some if he desires. The disadvantage of this was that if he were to level up amidst battle -unless he splits a part of his attention towards his system interface- his battle strength would not experience any rise.

In total, Sato had levelled up 6 times; 5 times right after completing the Main trials and the mission [The Caventry's Path], and 1 more after gaining the recognition of [Drakken] and completing the mission [Lord Worrus' Test]. Since every level up provided a player with 5 attribute points, the total of attribute points Sato had unused was 30.

During the mission [Lord Worrus' Test], when Sato was crossing the brown stone bridge, he had used 10 attribute points to increase his stats. After he had exited the bridge and arrived at the altar, Sato used another 5 attribute points to improve his body's resistance to the environment.

Currently, Sato now had 15 free attribute points left, which was the same as 3 level-ups. He then added 6 into [Strength], 2 to [Endurance], [Vitality], and [Agility]. Finally, Sato added the last 3 to [Dexterity]. As for the 2 potential points, he used one on [Chop] and the other on [Hack], bringing the power of the two skills to another level.

'That should be it.'

After settling all of this, Sato then turned his attention towards the question mark on his status panel. 

'Unregistered huh?'

In IR, chances are that a player might stumble upon a legendary weapon but not be aware of its rank even though they can see that it's a weapon. In such a scenario, they will be incapable of wielding the full might of the weapon unless they become aware of its abilities. Hence, even if they manage to equip it, the weapon would be shown as '???' or 'Unregistered' in the status panel, because the player isn't aware of the true nature and capabilities of the weapon.

To solve this issue wasn't difficult as all one would need to do is simply appraise the suspected weapon or equipment to discern its abilities.

'I'm guessing it's you..' Sato glanced at the ring on his finger.