Chapter 5: Obsidian

Marlon rushed past the trainees.He ran through the area where many of the injured were gathered, being tended to by others with healing-type talents.

On his way back, the cries of trainees mourning the death of their comrades echoed all around him.

He even spotted the group of boys who had beaten him up earlier, and apparently, two of them had already been killed by the demonic beasts.

Though his relationship with them was negative, he still felt bad for their loss.

He ran for another five minutes before finally managing to sneak inside his tent unnoticed.

Arriving in his hut, he quickly took off the black scarf, stuffed it to the bottom of his cloth bag, and collapsed onto the bed, heaving loud, heavy breaths after running for so long.

"Let’s see how much progress I’ve made," he muttered, summoning his character panel with a thought.

━━〔 BASIC INFORMATION 〕━━━

Name: Marlon Ashleigh

Talent: Absolute Punch (EX)

Power Level: 4 (65%)

Power Rank: FF

Health Points: 96 (Slightly Exhausted)

Health Regen: 1 HP/min

Aether Points: 100/100

Aether Regen: 1 AP/min

━━━〔 STATS 〕━━━

Strength: 32 | Agility: 35

Vitality: 10  | Intelligence: 30

Free Points: 8

━━━〔 ATTRIBUTES 〕━━━

Physical Attack: 80 | Magical Attack: 75

Physical Defense: 5% | Magical Defense: 5%

━━━〔 SKILLS 〕━━━

Passive: Drain (D) Night Instinct (F)

Active: Punch of Iron (D), Punch of Judgment (B)

"I’m already level four on my first day of awakening my talent. If others hear about this, they’d definitely be thrilled." He grinned.

He studied his system more carefully.

He noticed how its mechanics worked.

His strength stat directly translated to his physical attack attribute, while his intelligence controlled his magical attack.

When he had just 12 points in strength, his physical attack was at 30, but now that his strength had reached 32, his physical attack skyrocketed to 80.

One’s physical attack determined how much damage they could deal with raw strength. With his Punch of Iron boosting physical attack by 500%, he could unleash 400 damage in a single strike.

Most low-rank demonic beasts didn’t even possess that much health! Which meant he could kill them with just one punch!

The grin on his face widened.

The vitality stat, on the other hand, deals with health points and recovery, aka Health Regen.

It is one of the hardest stats to increase as it does not improve directly with level-ups.

It could only be increased by certain artifacts and potions.

It could also be improved using free stat points but it requires two free stat points for a single point increase.

Speaking of free stat points.

Marlon’s eyes landed on the free points. Each level up grants two points and with four level-ups, he now had eight points he could distribute as he desired.

Once he clicked on the free points, a new window popped up.

━━━〔 STATS 〕━━━

Strength: 32(+) | Agility: 35(+)

Vitality: 10(+)  | Intelligence: 30(+)

Free Points: 8

Marlon observed the window for a few seconds before deciding.

━━━〔 STATS 〕━━━

Strength: 36(+4) | Agility: 35(+)

Vitality: 12(+4)  | Intelligence: 30(+)

Free Points: 0

His physical attack rose from 80 to 90. With this new number, he could now deal 450 damage with Punch of Iron and 900 damage with Punch of Judgment.

Which was already very incredible as even some level 20 hunters could not deal such damage.

’In just one day, my growth is already this much!’

The smile on his face brightened.

The smile remained on his face as he fell asleep, ignoring the noise at the encampment.

====

Not so far away from his tent, close to an area where the healer took care of the injured, the two Whitlock sisters could be seen together.

"Lyra, I saw you speaking with the masked guy, did you learn his identity?" Selena asked calmly.

Lyra glared at her older sister and responded stubbornly. "Leave me alone."

Selena simply smiled wryly as she was already used to the stubborn personality of her beloved little sister.

She pressed her and inquired about the masked person over and over again.

She was curious to know about the unidentified fighter who stole the limelight. If she could find out who he was, she could convince him to join her team during the entrance exam trial, thus boosting her success rate.

"You’re even more interested about the identity of a stranger than the interest of your own younger sister." Lyra scoffed. "Anyways, there is no need for all this persuasion, he did not reveal his identity to me."

Selena paused and observed Lyra. She knew when her sister was telling a lie and right now she wasn’t.

"You guys had quite a long conversation from my observation; what were you discussing?" she asked.

This time, Lyra simply hissed and walked away, leaving her hanging.

Selena heaved a loud sigh and strolled away to her tent while wondering who that person was.

His fighting style was pretty basic—just punches here and there. The main reason he stood out was the damage dealt by those punches.

She had seen him take down a giant rat with a single punch, something that would take her at least two minutes to deal with.

’No matter what, I must find out who this person is,’ she vowed.

On the other hand, Lyra grumbled as she strolled down to her court.

"What kind of sister behaves like that?" she hissed.

Then her mind spun back to the conversation with the masked stranger and the words he said to her. Her heart began beating fast like a teenager in front of her crush.

’Obsidian Fist!’ she repeated the name. ’I’ll find you and make you give an explanation for those words.’

....

FIRST WEEK CHALLENGE:

Every 50 Powerstones Equal 3 Extra Chaps.

CURRENT COUNT: 12/50

Come on guys!