Broken Anomaly

After killing hundreds of monsters, Alex had more than become familiar with using his fists as weapons.

Using each new monster as a training dummy, he slowly integrated his martial arts knowledge into his combat style. His efforts were clear, and they were finally rewarded.

You have developed the skill: Fist mastery level 1.

Fist mastery has reached level 2.

It had taken him a while to develop the skill, but now that he had done so, it leveled up at a tremendous speed, as if trying to catch up.

Fist mastery has reached level 3.

Fist mastery has reached level 4.

However, the reality was that the skill was doing something entirely different. The System knew exactly at what level of mastery Alex was at when using his fists, the problem had always been the initial step. The connection that nobody had noticed.

Fist mastery has reached level 6.

Fist mastery has reached level 7.

Finally, the level up windows stopped. The System accurately displaying his correct skill level. But Alex hadn’t been paying the system windows any mind, as he was currently deeply immersed in the flow of battle.

He envisioned himself as a wall, not dodging but taking the brunt of all attacks directed at him. Each attack was a testament to his will and strength. A hybrid lunged at his side, but he punched its mandibles aside with his stone-covered forearm.

The hybrids kept attacking him, and just like when he defended against the horde of barghests, he remained unmovable.

For every strike he received, he would return two. More often than not, just one strike from him was enough to momentarily put an enemy out of commission. However, he was currently limited in movement and in terms of strength available to him.

If he wanted to put any more strength into his strikes, he would have to shift his body, and that could cause his entire stance to crumble. So, he made do with what he could currently handle and only focused on causing enough damage to incapacitate them, leaving them for later.

Not all the hybrids were the same size; some were considerably bigger, but they were rare, at least from what Alex had seen. But right now, one of the big ones, big enough to try take a piece of Alex’s head, rushed forward.

Alex noticed it in time and, using his right forearm, pushed the face of the giant insect upward.

The other monsters took advantage of his odd positioning, his sides being completely exposed. But he wouldn’t falter, he was a wall.

Keeping the head of the giant insect in a raised position and ignoring all the attacks that were leaving worse and worse wounds on his torso, he brought back his left arm, winding it up.

He began shaping the stones that covered his fist into more jagged ones.

Stone Armor has reached level 12.

Then, with as much strength as he could muster without destabilizing his position, he hurled his fist forward, punching the giant insect.

The stones penetrated deep into the giant bug’s exoskeleton, causing it to shake violently, but that wasn’t all. Alex brought his fist back and unleashed it once more, this time digging deeper.

Once again, he felt a faint spark between two of his skills, Stone Armor and Tough Skin.

Suddenly, for a brief moment, all the attacks he was receiving bounced off, leaving no trace. But just as suddenly, the spark disappeared, the attacks once again damaging him.

With one final strike, Alex caused enough damage to begin the severing of the giant insect’s head. However, he didn’t stop with his punishment against the monster, he continued to relentlessly strike at it.

This time, he began holding its mandibles with his hand twisted oddly, all so that it wouldn’t escape.

The giant insect shook, trying to free itself from Alex’s grasp. In its desperate attempt to free itself, it failed to notice that it was only making its own wounds worse.

The more violently it shook, the greater the severing became. With one final jerk from the insect, and one final strike from Alex, the head was severed completely.

Like all the hybrids he had seen up until now, the ones that lost their heads, that is, it began to move automatically. They didn’t necessarily continue to do what they were doing, some did, but some, like the one before him, just moved in a random direction.

Tough Skin has reached level 4.

You have developed the skill: Pain Tolerance level 1.

Alex continued to ignore all the system windows that appeared before him. However, that didn’t mean he failed to notice the improvements he was going through.

What the fuck did Eric go through to get the skill before me? he asked himself. He now had enough leisure to form coherent thoughts without interrupting his combat. Maybe it’s because of the level difference?

Letting go of the questions he was forming in his head, but still curious enough to want an answer, he shelved the topic for later. He turned and focused entirely on the enemies before him.

At this point, no matter how good his skills were, the fight had been going on long enough for his mana to reach a critically low level. Which made perfect sense considering he had three skills constantly active.

Regeneration, a skill that he got on a whim to survive a hazardous fall, had really saved him. It quickly took care of small wounds and kept most other wounds from becoming worse. With his mana so low, it began to lose efficacy.

It first stopped its rapid coagulation, meaning that deeper wounds began to bleed for a normal amount of time. It then stopped healing small wounds. The last one was especially noticeable as Alex began to feel searing pain all over his abdomen and legs.

Pain Tolerance has reached level 2.

Ignoring the pain, ignoring the system window, and definitely ignoring the questions he had about Eric and his skills, he continued fighting.

Having finally recovered from the awkward stance he had been in when dealing with the giant hybrid, he began attacking in earnest.

The stones that were covering his fists were still jagged, more so than usual, so every attack was far more devastating than before.

Having turned off both Regeneration and Tough skin, so that he could keep Stone Armor active for longer, he became much more aggressive.

He had long since come to the conclusion that while martial arts were definitely effective, they were more for when facing a single opponent, or at least a more human-shaped one.

Now, only one image came to mind. The image of mindless savagery. He thought back to the countless action movies he watched with his dad on Saturday morning when he was younger.

A faint image of a desperate survivor formed in his head. One that overlapped with the memory of Eric tearing through the giant crab.

“Helping even when you’re not around,” Alex muttered, somewhat thankful.

He always fought with a certain level of caution. It was small things, like him tucking his chest, so that it was harder to reach. How he always kept his head back, afraid of injury.

In general, he knew what he could take and what he couldn’t, and that was what guided him.

Guided by the memory of Eric, not only during the fight with the giant crab but in general, he let himself go.

Eric never cared about any potential danger, as long as it was interesting. Eric never backed away from a fight regardless of the state he was in, it was something that became synonymous with Eric himself the more you got to know him.

Alex, who had always been a teacher to Eric, finally learned something from him.

Strike after strike, he tore through the remaining hybrids. He ceased to care about his accumulated fatigue, about the screaming wounds, he even forgot about the enemy. He only struck whatever was in front of him.

Everything had become background noise.

By the time he came to, he was sitting in the middle of the egg chamber, which no longer had any eggs, as he had destroyed everything that used to be in here.

He was breathing heavily and clutching some deep wounds that refused to stop bleeding. However, he wasn’t worried, if this were before the System’s arrival, then he would be dead for sure, but now? Now his body was strong enough to be hit by a bus and receive no major injuries, at least not permanent ones.

He sat there, waiting for his mana to recover, finally taking his time to go through the system windows. He was surprised by some, not so much by others. Some he had glimpsed at, like the Pain Tolerance skill windows.

Which actually brought his mind back to a single question. “Why did I get it after Eric?” he asked himself, not out of jealousy, but genuine curiosity. Considering their fighting styles, he should’ve felt pain more times than Eric.

A hypothesis formed in his head. “Maybe its relative,” he said, unsure. “The threshold for pain is different for everyone. Maybe it’s the same for the skill,” he said, accepting it, but suddenly, another idea struck him. “What if it’s something else? Could I be missing something?”

He was monitoring his mana on the side, seeing it be full, he activated Regeneration immediately. The wounds that refused to stop bleeding, did. The searing pain he had from countless small cuts and injuries ceased. Little by little, his body was returning to the best condition it could.

Letting go of his thoughts and questions, he just enjoyed the sense of relief he got from his body feeling better. He then began to scratch himself furiously. He had gotten some itches, but they were so close to some wounds that he was afraid of making them worse, and now, that was no longer an issue.

His current display was nothing like what he had displayed mere moments ago, when he even bit down on a hybrid’s leg and tore it from its torso. That was a display of primal savagery that was beyond astonishing, and now he was afraid of worsening a small cut.

Having allowed his mana to recover once more, he began to walk toward what he assumed was the last chamber in their hive.

Every chamber and tunnel, including the large garden cavern, had more of the blue crystals along the walls. However, their placement appeared much more deliberate.

Some of the stones seemed natural, like the ones in the small tunnel he was walking through, others, like the ones in the egg chamber, seemed much more planned.

Before he could continue to ponder about the placement of the crystals, he arrived at a doom-like chamber. It reminded him of the one he had found in the first tunnels. However, unlike that one, this one had a giant bug in the middle.

“The queen?” Alex asked himself, carefully observing the insect before him.

Alex could clearly tell that it couldn’t move. Its abdomen was huge—so huge, in fact, that its sheer size and weight was causing it to lift the rest of its body.

“Maybe it can roll,” he muttered as he backed away, considering the possibility of dying to a rolling bug.

Alex observed the queen for a moment but couldn’t really discern anything. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t a queen with such vacant eyes. He took a deep breath, jagged stones appearing on his fists once more.

Quest complete!

+2 skill points.

“Where is the unknown reward?” Alex asked himself as he brought out his quest log and read the rewards.

Reward(s): +2 skill points. Unknown.

He kept that question as he walked around the queen’s corpse, toward the back of the chamber.

On the ground, near the chamber wall, were a couple of things.

A broken glass jar with a small amount of dirt still in it. A medium-sized wooden box with a piece of flat wood with circular openings and pieces of glass at the bottom.

There were also some sheets of paper that had parts chewed out. Whatever remained was in a language Alex didn’t recognize. There were some scribblings on each sheet of paper that were also indecipherable.

The last thing was a ring. It was a simple ring, maybe gold. It was a bare ring, with no adornments and nothing inscribed. When he touched the ring, a new system message appeared.

+1 Storage ring (small).

A huge smile overtook his face, he had just come across another staple of integration novels. Not only that, but it was also very likely that this was the unknown reward. Just to confirm, he checked his rewards once more.

Reward(s): +2 skill points. +1 Storage ring (small).

Once he confirmed it, he immediately put it on, and after what felt like an eternity of experimentation, he failed to activate it.

“How are you supposed to use this?” he asked, a bit annoyed.

Feeling that his journey had been fruitful and not wanting to waste any more time, he bundled up the remaining papers, stored them in his back pocket, and made his way back to the garden cavern.

Once in the garden, he drank some water and plucked some fruits. Feeling greater than ever, he was now ready for his journey back to Solace.