Rocks, roots, and old bones had all taken shots at his hands, ripping fingernails off in spurts of blood. His fists impacted the ground and cut like a plow. Strong fists and plows join to rip and tear even lines through the soil, rocks, and roots. Strength, in this case, meant blades enchanted to cut through. He stabbed his fists into the soil and carved in the most shonen experience of his life.
With every step he took towards the distant goal, he felt a sense of cleansing, as if his past sins were being washed away. His torn and bloodied fingers healed stronger than before, a testament to his resilience. The source of his regeneration was his fuel, his sustenance. As he bit into the grilled bass, he felt his regeneration surge, a sign of his growing strength.
Temporary food bonuses of one type could be stacked 9x. Three days after his meal with Thistle, he had taken to fishing and got better at it. After discovering that his inventory could stack up to 99 of a single item, he filled it with food that boosted his gains. Every stack shortened the time the boost lasted until they caped at nine stacks for 30 minutes and he maintained it. Different stacks could be applied, allowing him to buff strength, body gain, regeneration, and life gains.
The levels were sweet, but he was missing out on flexibility. Sure, his strong fist could cut, and he got better at it with every punch against the ground, but the levels slowed down.
Strong Fist
Level: 13/99
Rank: G
Plow
Level: 15/99
Rank: G
Sweat beaded down his brow from the multiple suns, and he stopped dead in his tracks when, in the distance, a ringed planet began to rise, shining violet through the atmosphere. A massive moon swung slowly between the two planets, glowing gold. He couldn't imagine something like this being a natural accident. It had to do with portals to the nightmare and dreamlands.
Zack stabbed his hands into the comforting, not mind-blowing earth and smashed into a hard rock. He felt the cut down its length that his punch created. He could control the height and width of the blades.
The world traveler took some time to rest.
He figured out what increased potential meant.
Strength G-
Level:15/107
Raising potential raised the cap needed to reach the next rank. Zack fondly remembered his full panic mode and shook his head at his inexperience. After he calmed himself down and reasoned, he made a shocking discovery. More powerful skills needed more levels to rank up, so if they required more strength levels to rank up, then when they did, they would be much stronger. He had already gained over 10% of what he needed in only three days. He had two years and had yet to max out grilling. That meant he could become so much more powerful.
Zack pulled his hands out of the ground and went to a little collection of leather, tree limbs, and boulders. It was a squat press resting waist level on two rocks with a 200+ pound boulder sitting on it. The wrapped leather kept the boulder from rolling back, thanks to it sitting snug in place.
He took a break to let his fingers heal and did a few reps. It hurt, but seeing his numbers go up made him feel better. It was too light, but with hundreds of reps, he could plow through his limits. Skills were only limited by their uses. Something remarkable in the hands of one person could be crap in the hands of someone else and vice versa.
Also, his legs had never looked so good. His bulging muscles stood on end, fed a constant supply of monster protein.
For a while, he had been scared he would overfish the pond, but he seemed to be the only one fishing it, and there were no shortages of game that he could tell. The pond was more of a swamp that stretched nearly 5 acres covered in trees growing around it. Beavers built up the levees, and it expanded, stretching a little further every year. It was huge this year thanks to Zack hunting the predators that normally trimmed the beaver population.
Zack crossed into level 16 strength and felt his regeneration go to work on his body. He ate more bass meat, still perfectly cooked with lemon pepper seasoning, and felt his fingers pop back into place.
Grilling
Level 8/9
Rank: G
He tried to grill things to the perfect temperature to keep their texture right on the side of flaky and their taste smokey. The apple tree wood near the pond worked in his favor. The pond was once an apple orchard, but then a plow opened a natural spring and flooded the orchard.
Maybe he needed to grill something more substantial to get it into the F rank. Wait, he hadn't tried grilling vegetables yet. When it was time to take a break, he decided to try grilling some pop berries to see how they changed.
In his demi-plane, the pop berries had flourished. He altered the flow of time to only 3x his time, and the mana he received was constant.
Primordial World (seed)
Level: 3/9999
Rank: G
Range: 1.1 meters cubed
Zack added the skeletons and organs of the monsters he killed, burying them beneath the pond mud. Mana turned into a small shower within his demi-plane, keeping the pop berries happy. A few sparked with lightning skills but were average overall.
Their little sparks attracted flies that found their way inside, frying them instantly. Dead bugs piled around the pop berries. It wasn't much, but it was the start of an ecosystem, and every little death was mana released to feed his demi-plane.
Once he planted enough and started adding monsters, his mana gains would increase, and his world would begin proliferating. Then he could start messing with evolution to produce the best possible meat and veggies to grill up. It reminded him of an old puppet cartoon's theme song. 'All god's creatures fresh off the grill,' he liked that sound.
He had lots of plans in the works and was growing stronger fast. Once he got his hands on some mana stones, it was over. He would leave and travel the world, acquiring breeding pairs of every monster on the planet to add to his world as it grew ever larger. When he had everything, he would think about maybe doing the task the gods had given him.
Zack had a goal, making him feel like a blessed Shonen protagonist. He would collect them all.
A dust cloud from Thistle alerted him that it was midday, and he had made lots of progress. He punched a boulder sticking halfway out of the ground and split it open to his wrist. Then he punched it with his left hand, and it exploded, raining chunks of gravel around him. He was smart enough to close his eyes beforehand.
Shifting between pulverizing and cutting was hard, but that was the strength of a fist. It could cut and shatter just as quickly. After all, the power of a skill was based on the user's mental flexibility.
Thistle arrived covered in sweat and breathing heavily with an extra bulge in her saddlebags. "He fished her brush out of its place in her bags and immediately got to work, brushing the dirt out of her coat.
"You don't have to do that."
"I love your coat, and if you don't take care of it, I will."
"Tarnation, I'm not a doll or one of your weak flowers." Zack snapped his pop berry whip, and bolts of blue electricity flashed where he struck. "I was talking about human girls, not that weed you turned into a deadly weapon. That skill can't be farming. Is it something like soldier fist?"
"What's soldier fist?" Zack asked.
"Your pa is a soldier. What the buck do you mean what's soldier fist? I thought that's what he was having you practice plowing the fields." Thistle said.
She might still be sore about missing out on money from those fields.
"The skill he had me learn had a different name." Zack grinned at her. "Why are you fishing for the exact names of my skills? I thought that was rude unless we were close friends," Zack asked.
She looked at him as he picked the burs from her tail and brushed the dust. Then he started working on her rump, careful not to move her panties or stare at the bulge her private area was making. He rubbed a hand against her back, solid leg.
"What in tarnation are you doing? Get back to brushing. We aren't cuddling in this heat. I'm too sweaty for it, and I stink." Thistle said.
Her large green eyes narrowed at him in suspicion when he went back to brushing closer to her panties. Of course, he was only getting the dust off. There was no way he would do something more intimate.
Check my other saddlebag. I have a surprise. Three days seemed to be a short time to tan leather and much less to make boots. Then again, he had no idea how skill made such tasks more manageable.
"Have you told your pa about going to the dungeon yet?"
"I planned to tell him tonight after I make dinner. All he eats is pickled eggs and salted ham. I'm surprised he doesn't have kidney stones or gout."
"I've never heard of either of those ailments. Are they like the time sickness?" Thistle asked.
"What's time sickness?" Zack asked.
"You are so sheltered, but your pa is in the F+ rank and could go into E at any time. It happens when someone stops ranking up or getting stronger. Sometimes, it happens when someone doesn't level the life attribute or is born without it. Buck, it's horrible. People wrinkle and waste away as their bodies slowly start to fail them. Most who suffer from it throw themselves into battle until a monster defeats them or they find a way to break their limits." Thistle said.
Zack stared at her for a long moment. Was she talking about old age? So, typical diseases don't matter here because they extend their lives so long that someone keeps leveling their attributes. Body and strength made wearing them down harder, and life extended their life spans. If someone kept striving to move forward, they might become a god and never die of old age. Of course, that meant there would always be more people on this side unless wars and monster surges took them out.
"That sounds terrible. I think they only happen to someone already afflicted with time sickness. So Pa is fine. I'm only being dramatic and disparaging his diet."
Zack found the snake boots in her saddlebags and tried them on. They fit perfectly, and their grey scales with slight black patterns looked badass. Most importantly, they were comfortable, light, and challenging. Before, his thorns couldn't puncture its scales, but after turning them into boots, he was sure they were even more vital after being processed.
Another dust cloud appeared as a carriage with eyeless black demons painted on white hurtled toward the farmhouse. Twenty riders in front of the carriage dressed all in black and carrying flags with a black hound on them. They led the way while flanking the carriage were men dressed in gleaming armor of different colors, each with a different flag. Some had hawks in fields of blue, while others had dragons on yellow fields with a yellow planet behind them. Behind them were men running out wearing little armor to hide their tan skin and bulging muscles. Most were armed with battle axes and massive swords.
"That's a carriage of house Janus. Only the duke himself or one of the duke's lords on his business can travel in them. What does he want from Mr. Smith? In the lead, those men had to be Count Corvo's black hound inquisition. Flanking them are the second sons knightly order, and in the back are the E-grade barbarians of Lord Fist."
"What rank are soldiers normally?"
"Once a soldier finishes training, they are in the F- rank, and if they survive a few battles, they are expected to reach F rank. Your pa is F+, meaning he survived countless battles."
Something told him his easy days on the farm would end soon. A large man nearly as tall as Joshua Smith stepped out of the carriage and knocked on the door. The door swung open, and Joshua dragged the man inside.
"Do you think this was an extravagant social call?" Zack asked.
"No, I think your father is about to leave his retirement," Thistle said.
Patreon Plug 5 chapters online, with chapter 13 being a massive centaur smut chapter. I hope it's tasteful. just copy and paste the link.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ch9-strong-fist-109973725