Chereads / Crest Of An Outcast / Chapter 4 - Chapter 3: Prelude to Greatness

Chapter 4 - Chapter 3: Prelude to Greatness

///AN- Hey everyone, Luke here! I'm going to switch to third person for the story now, it seems that people have not had the most enjoyable experience reading it from the POV of Gabriel, so I'll change it up and see how it goes! Please let me know what you prefer in the comments! Hope you enjoy!///

{Understood. Stat Allocation completed.} Gabriel smiled as he watched the little notification vanish from his sight breathing a little sigh out. 'This was more or less a test run anyway. Cool thing about levelling up is my health is refilled each time' he thought, stretching a little bit to loosen his body a little after that battle and had a quick look at his health to see if it boosted up.

{HP: 100/100}

'Every five points in my constitution was fifty extra health points, good to know that. Time to see what my other stats were like upgraded.' Gabriel was very happy with the result so far, more health was great as always, he was quite eager to see what the rest of his stats would be like since he's upgraded them. He didn't bother with my Intelligence at the moment, since he and Lazarus would be going up against tougher enemies he'd chosen to invest into Strength and Agility, more damage and speed seemed fitting.

{HP: 100/100

SP: 150/150

Strength- 15

Agility- 30

Constitution- 25

Intelligence- 10

Luck- 30

Reaction- 10

Gabriel was definitely happy with his choices, at least for now, he'd have to work out how to allocate them later, in the meantime he decided to go ahead and loot each and every one of the corpses. {Alert: Monster parts can be turned into equipment and items, they can also be sold in the store for gold.}

That took him aback for a moment, knowing that he can use the actual parts of the monsters was good to hear. "Hey Lazarus, I can use monster parts, I can get money for them or make them into equipment or items. Wanna help me carve them up?" Lazarus just gave him a look of horror and quickly shook his head. "No way! It's one thing to kill because I'm trying to live, but carve up the corpses? Nah dude you can do the honours"

Gabriel chuckled a little bit and gave him a grin. "Yeah I probably should have expected that." With that he got to his feet and grasped a dagger from the ground, keeping hold of it tightly as he made his way over to the first group of Goblins he had killed and inspected them for items first, putting the daggers he found on them into a small pile. "They pretty weak weapons but it's gonna be worth selling them at least, coin is coin after all."

After a few minutes he had managed to gather up about 15 daggers that were just about useable, the rest of the ones he found were all broken so the system said he unfortunately couldn't sell them. "That's a disappointment… beggars couldn't be choosers I guess" he sighed, double checking the bodies for any extra loot before giving up as he found nothing of value.

"Alright that's good, time to sell these" Gabriel then opened up the shop menu and grabbed a dagger, checking the price and He quickly perked up seeing that he would get 10 gold for each one he sold. He quickly sold every single one he had, making 150 Gold out of them. {Broken Pieces may be used for upgrades or to use as materials to create weapons, armour and items..} {Alert: You have unlocked the Blacksmithing Tab in the Store.}

That alert had his interest peaked so he smiled and spoke "System, open Blacksmithing." Watching as another very large window appeared in front of his eyes that was the size of his entire body, he had to reach out to be able to interact. Gabriel hummed a little as he inspected the different options he had.

{Alert: Enhancing increases the base stats of the weapon or armour that you choose but lowers its natural durability.}

{Repair: This allows you to fix anything you currently have as long as you have the materials, magical weapons, armour and items need to be re-enchanted.}

{Evolve: This lets you turn a weapon into its next form, most weapons have an extra form, some have two and others have three. You may use a duplicate of a what you are trying to evolve in order to increase the odds of a success.}

Gabriel hummed a little in thought as he scanned the three options though he mainly discarded the idea of repairing, his Rapier wasn't damaged enough to warrant fixing at the moment, the question for him was whether to go for a simple enhancement or see if he could evolve his Rapier. "Do I go for the natural boost or do I make it evolve to a higher tier? I better choose wisely..." he mumbled to himself. Lazarus was sat on a rock recovering form the battle, his wounds seemed rather superficial so he wasn't in too much pain, the fatigue however had caught up and completely tired him out.

"System, open the store for me at the moment." he said, watching as the menu switched out for the store and revealed the contents to him. He began looking through the potions immediately, humming a bit in thought before finding the one he was looking for. "Potion of Energy. Removes all exhaustion and provides an extra Energy boost depending on the Users Constitution at a +1 for every 5 in the stat. This energy boost prevents them from gaining Exhaustion for ten minutes for every +1 they've gained." Gabriel as pretty stunned at how effective that potion was and considering the cost was only 20 Gold he was almost shocked into silence. He quickly bought two of them and took one over to Lazarus.

"Drink this and you'll feel better" he said, drinking his own with a pleased sigh as a rush of energy bubbled throughout his entire body. {Alert: You cannot gain Exhaustion for the next 50 minutes.} That was a notice he very much liked to see.

"Alright then, next thing... System, when will I get to decide on a Class?" Gabriel asked aloud as Lazarus drank his potion with a grimace. {Answer: You may select a beginner class immediately. Would you like to see the Options?} "Yes. Show me what I can get please"

{Notice: You have collected 100 points and the following Beginner classes are available for you to unlock. Each class is 100 points, upon choosing one the next class will cost 500 points. You can have two beginner classes before you are forced to move on to the advanced classes.}

{Ranger: This Class specialises in Long Distance Combat along with Monster Tracking. Harvested materials are worth double their usual amount and all ranged attacks deal more damage.}

{Sorcerer: This class manipulates the flow of magic to cause random effects related to what you can imagine. You have access to ambient mana but cannot create mana yourself, the very flow of magic itself is neither friend nor foe to you, simply working in whatever way it is manipulated.}

{Blademaster: This class is based purely on melee combat focused around bladed weapons. This class is designed to deal more damage with blades and increase efficiency with them faster than other classes. This opens up many subclasses for weapons and weapon enhancement.}

"Alright... interesting options..." Gabriel mumbled to himself, looking at the three intently before finally making his choice. "System, use the points to unlock the Blademaster class." A bronze glow then surrounded Gabriel as the System did as requested, granting him a new Title above his name.

"Beginner Swordsman... I mean it isn't wrong-" Gabriel said, grumbling a little bit. He hoped it would have made him sound cooler at least. {Alert: Title has been added, while the Title 'Beginner Swordsman' is active you gain a extra +3 damage with bladed weapons.}

"That's good then I guess, I better check-" He was cut off by another System notification appearing in front of his eyes. {Alert: Class Reward Box Unlocked. Do you wish to Open this now?} He didn't even have to consider the option and quickly accepted the box, watching as a white light appear on the ground in front of him, revealing a large chest. "Well I'll be damned, this is pretty impressive!" He took a look at it and the box's information came up.

{Item Rarity Guaranteed-Epic. One weapon of common to Rare rarity, one armour of Epic rarity, one item of common to Rare Rarity.} Gabriel was quite pleased with that, taking one look at the lock and after a moment of slight struggle he managed to open it up.

"Alright, let's grab the item first." Gabriel said, taking in a little breath as he reached in, grabbing hold of the small bundle of light that signified the item. To his dismay it stayed as a white orb, signifying that it was indeed just a common but he was happy either way when it took shape in his hand into some kind of brick. That's when the item's description popped up.

{Item Description- Apprentice Whetstone: This Whetstone allows you to improve the durability on your bladed weapons when not in combat. This item has unlimited uses and every time you use this your weapons durability is restored by ten points. This cannot fix completely broken weapons.}

"Oh okay, this'll be pretty useful I think, better store it away." he muttered, the Whetstone vanishing into his inventory before he turned his gaze back to the chest. That's when he looked at the light signalling the weapon which was sadly glowing white, but he grabbed it anyway and lifted it out of the chest. That's when the colour changed, bursting into a blue light that quickly began taking shape until he realised he was holding onto a rather long chain with two blades on each end. "Huh? A bladed chain?"

{Weapon Description: Chain Scythe- When using this weapon you gain a +5 to all damage you inflict and after ten successful strikes you automatically deal a critical strike that causes medium bleed damage, causing the enemy to lose 2 health every second.} Gabriel was quite pleased with that description, he appreciated the extra benefit to damage. "Looks like I'll be able to go even longer for these waves."

Gabriel then decided to grab the final light inside the chest, reaching in and grasping hold of it and lifting it out of the chest with a wide smile. It was glowing purple, signalling it's Epic rarity and he couldn't be happier when the light vanished and turned into a white robe that would fit him perfectly. The robe was covered in pink Sakura petals with a smaller scarf-style waistcloth with the image of a slim blade in the centre of it.

{Item Description- Robe of the Aspiring Swordsman: This robe grants you a bonus of +3 to your armour, a +2 bonus to all attacks made with bladed weapons and grants you an extra skill when using a Katana.}

"Well I don't have a Katana so looks like I won't be getting that bonus skill for a while, either way it's a boost I'm glad for." Gabriel said to himself, smiling as he immediately equipped it and brushed his hand along it, liking the soft feel of it. "Feels like silk actually..."

Thats when he realised a timer was counting down in front of his eyes, counting from one minute. "Lazarus, it's going to start again soon. You think you're ready to fight?" Lazarus just took in a deep breath and nodded, pushing himself up off of the rock he was sat on and cracked his knuckles, his Crest activating and coating his body with those thin dragon scales of his.

The two of them prepared themselves for their next battle, Gabriel holding onto his Chain Scythe tightly and giving it a few swings to quickly test the weight and his control over it. "Alright, let's see what we get this time. Hopefully more Goblins" Lazarus said, looking a little nervous before he saw something inside the Chest that Gabriel had opened, walking over and pulling out a small ball of light.

"Uh, Lazarus?" Gabriel asked before seeing Lazarus crumple to the ground unconscious after he let out an ear-piercing scream and a window quickly appeared in front of Gabriel's eyes.

{Secret Quest Activated: Seed of growth. You must protect your Ally for this wave. Upon success they will-} The window gave no indication of what would be gained after this quest was finished, that's when the sound of loud growling could be heard as over twenty large Dire Wolves began walking out from the treeline.

{Wave Two: Begin.}