Chereads / Apocalyptic Apex Predator / Chapter 15 - Fusion

Chapter 15 - Fusion

{ Blood Frenzy (title) - Through the many life and death battles you have encountered, you have become quite the battle junky. You are able to keep your composure most of the time, but when enough blood has been spilt on the battlefield, killing becomes Euphoric for you. When Blood Frenzy activates, it transforms into the skill 'Berserker' giving you a large stat boost in proportion to the amount of blood and/or injured creatures, friend and foe, in the area. Your rationality leaves you the longer 'Berserker' is active, increasing the likelihood of attacking indiscriminately.

- Inactive: The sight of blood does not affect you. Slight reduction in the effectiveness of mental attacks (does not work on the skill 'Berserker')

- Active: Blood Frenzy evolves into Berserker until out of combat. }

{ Berserker (D) - The temporary evolution of the title 'Blood Frenzy' that allows you to increase your stats in proportion to the amount of blood and injured living beings in your immediate surroundings. The skill will stay active until you are out of combat.

- Stats are increased by 0.5%, for a max of 30%, per injured living being and/or liter of blood.

- Mental stability decreases for every minute spent in this state.

- If in this state for more than 30 minutes, Insanity sets in, causing you to attack everything in sight regardless of your own safety or others. }

{ Critical Aim (F) - You are learning how to tell and aim for vital spots on living beings.

- Slight increase in Attack and Precision when using a weapon

- 1% chance to cause a 'critical strike,' dealing double damage. }

{ Arc Strike (F) - You have learned to use mana alongside your physical strength, manifesting itself as an arc of light.

- An arc of solid light follows your blade, burning through your enemies.

- Deals 80% of Attack as Magic Power

- cost: 10 mana per use }

{ Throwing (F) - You are learning how to throw your weapons properly to use them in a variety of circumstances.

- Slight increase in Attack and Precision when throwing a melee weapon.

- After a distance of 10 meters, your thrown weapons attack decreases exponentially until it hits the ground. }

{ Super Predation (F) - You see yourself as a Predator despite being weaker than your enemies. When facing an enemy stronger than yourself your skills are enhanced to the same rank of your enemy. Backlash will be dealt once out of combat.

- skill enhancer boost your skills to the same level as your enemy if they are at least 1 rank above your base stats.

- Backlash: Depending on how many of your enhanced skills you used, your body will seize up for an unknown amount of time. Possible result in death. }

{ Sword Mastery (F) - You are learning how to use sword weapons

- Slight increase in Attack and precision when using a sword }

The new skills and titles he received during the fight all had pros and cons but his favorites were undoubtedly Critical Aim and Arc Strike.

The two skills were both straightforward and useful, with Critical Aim being helpful in killing enemies quickly while Arc Strike was his first skill using mana. They may have been low level now, but as he continued gaining experience with them he hoped they would outshine other skills, especially these self-sacrificing ones.

He also quite liked Throwing, as it gave him a bit more versatility with his knives but he couldn't throw his weapons very far at the moment, not to mention he only had two knives he was willing to throw and potentially lose.

Blood Frenzy, Berserker, and Super Predator seemed to all work together to enhance the Player in exchange for some sort of backlash. The more he used them the worse he would end up later on.

For Blood Frenzy, Leon thought it was a very interesting title, as it could transform into a skill with the right conditions. The increase in mental stability in its inactive state was always welcome while the transformation into Berserker was also quite good when he was facing multiple enemies.

The issue he had though was that the mental stability increase didn't affect the Berserker skill as it was the title's active state, meaning he would continue to lose his sanity the longer he was Berserk. The Insanity state would cause him to disregard his own safety and go on a rampage but considering he was the only human in the area, it wasn't such a big deal right now.

Super Predation was also similar, in that it had a really great effect against groups in exchange for a backlash, this time in the form of physically not being able to move. Such a backlash was scary for Leon who lived alone, plus pup, and could only rely on himself.

If he couldn't defend himself for who knows how long, he was pretty much dead meat.

He also wasn't sure if he even received the backlash after the fight with the Deer King but maybe it was because his body was already extremely sore that he just didn't notice it.

Sword mastery was pretty straight forward but something else he noticed was that he had finally moved up to E rank! While his status page didn't say what rank he was in, he knew he had stepped into the realm of E rankers as 3/5 of his stats had hit E rank.

His health, attack and intelligence were all E while defense and speed were still F. Having the Cloak and other equipment didn't change his base stats, only amplifying his power to a certain extent which is why it was difficult for Leon to use all of the Cloak's stats. It was currently beyond his physical limitations and trying to break through the limit too many times like he did during the boss fight might leave him crippled one day.

As for his E rank status, his total rank would not be recognized by the system until he hit D rank. His knowledge told him that once a living being reached D rank, it would show up next to their name and could become visible to other living beings.

It was both a pro and con for obvious reasons but from what he knew, most God-like beings had ways to conceal that from others. Secrecy was important if your life was constantly in danger so Leon would eventually need to find a way to keep himself hidden, if he chose to interact with the world one day.

Trust was something he rarely gave out, as on the battlefield, there will always be people who backstab you in order to survive. It was human nature and he had seen it one too many times as a soldier.

He patted down his Wolf Leather Vest as he held it up to get a look at it. The claw mark from Kona's mother were now gone and the durability had been restored. He wasn't sure about how to repair it and his other equipment initially, as eventually they would all deteriorate.

He didn't want to have to remake armor every time the previous one broke but his answer came in the form of his special gift that he received for defeating a boss monster.

*ding!* [You have accomplished an impossible feat for your rank! You will receive a special reward (E) x1!]

*ding!* [You have received Multitool (E)!]

{Multitool (E) - A tool designed to fix a wide variety of items regardless of the material used.

- Can be used to repair any material of the same rank or lower, even material that would seem incompatible

- Slight increase in efficiency and quality of items that have been repaired rather than made from scratch

- Slight increase in exp for creation skills used alongside the Multitool

- Cooldown: (0/1) time remaining: 11:58 h}

The Multitool was the perfect item for Leon who wanted to level up his crafting skills Woodworking, Weapon Smithing, and Leatherworking in order to level up his Creation Mastery. Its effects were great and while it was a bit awkward to try and use on items such as bone or metal, it was able to magically repair items that had missing durability.

He wasn't able to repair anything that had reached a durability of zero, i.e. his crude bone knife, but as long as he didn't let it get that low, and he had the same material used to make the item, he could repair it almost instantly.

He also would earn extra exp for his crafting skills, moving his plans along faster but the downside was the cooldown. He could only use the item once to repair something before he had to wait 12 hours to use it again.

It was a huge set back but maybe that's what made it an E rank item. There might possibly be an item similar to this that has a higher rank and shorter cooldown but it would be a while before he could come across anything like that.

Using the Multitool on his Vest also increased its durability from 40 to 45 total. The stats didn't change at all but having a higher durability was always reassuring.

Putting the Multitool away in his inventory, he put on his newly repaired Vest and moved it around a bit to make sure it fit still. The system wouldn't have changed its size either way, but it was hard to change habits that mattered with regular clothes.

After that, he then tied on a pair of Leather Bracers that he made by combining his Gloves with a Leather armguard for added defense and Attack capabilities.

{ Grey Wolf Leather Gloves (F) - A pair of Leather gloves made out of the hide of a Grey Wolf.

Attack +2

Defense +2

durability: 20/20 }

{ Grey Wolf Leather Armguards (F) - A pair of Leather Armguards made out of the hide of a Grey Wolf.

Health +2

Defense +2

durability: 25/25 }

*ding!* [Grey Wolf Leather Gloves (F) and Grey Wolf Leather Armguards (F) are reacting to each other. Do you wish to fuse?]

*ding!* [Fusion will begin in a moment.]

*ding!* [You have created Grey Wolf Leather Bracers (E) through Fusion!]

*ding!* [You are the first Awakened to create an item through Fusion! You will receive a special reward (F) for your efforts!]

{ Grey Wolf Leather Bracers (E) - A pair of Leather Bracers made through the Fusion of Grey Wolf Leather Gloves (F) and Grey Wolf Leather Armguards (F).

Health +4

Attack +4

Defense +8

durability: 40/40

attached skill: Counter (F) - Parry a physical attack and retaliate dealing double the damage that would have been done to you. Can be blocked or parried. There is a chance this skill can fail.

- +100% damage of the enemies parried attack

- 35% chance to fail, dealing 35% more damage to you }