[Your rewards for breaking through the 50-point Strength boundary are as follows. Please choose two of the following three options as your reward.]
Following the words of the nightmare imprint, a series of choices instantly appeared in front of Sheyan.
[A. Strength of Protection: Reduce the enemy"s explosive hit rate by 30% (this property has precedence), and reduce explosive hit damage sustained by 30% (this property has domain precedence).]
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[B. Strength of Truth: Increase Strength by 15 points.]
[C. Strength of Barbarism: When a crus.h.i.+ng damage check is performed on your attack, there will be an additional +25 correction value (that is, if Sheyan attacks with 50 points of Strength, the check to determine whether it would be a crus.h.i.+ng damage would be calculated according to 75 points of Strength). In addition, the explosive hit rate of crus.h.i.+ng damages increases by 33%.]
Sheyan gave careful thought to these three options. Obviously, if the choice became too hard, one could never go wrong with option B. 15 points of Strength were a lot. Meanwhile, option A focused on defense, and option C focused on offense.
Sheyan took into account that his own team was now beginning to take shape. The MT, Reef, was here to stay. Someone with a s.h.i.+eld like him was suited to deal with Boss-level creatures with high single-attack damages. His performance so far had been impeccable.
Sheyan"s position on the team was someone who was more suited to deal with a large swarm of enemies, the kind that dealt lower damage but had a high attacking frequency such as a beast wave. It was already difficult for these ordinary creatures to deal explosive hits to him, so choosing option A would be a waste.
More importantly, Sheyan had once seen a Damage Reflection Scroll in the nightmare realm.... Unfortunately, the seller was only putting it on display to show off. The price he set showed that he had no intention of selling it at all.
Although Sheyan did not get his hands on the scroll, it gave him a rough goal for evolution. With damage reflection, the harder the enemy hit, the more they will hurt themselves. Sheyan may sometimes even wish for the enemy to deal explosive hits.
Therefore, after some careful consideration, Sheyan chose Options B and C. By this time, the damage of "+7 West" had gradually fallen behind. After Sheyan return to the realm, he would make finding a weapon his top priority.
His current Strength was 72. After selecting options B and C, he would have 112 points of Strength in crus.h.i.+ng damage checks! Even Growth Hunters would suffer crus.h.i.+ng damages from his attacks if they had less than 55 points of Strength!
Although all Growth Hunters had received the reward of pure attributes x2, there shouldn"t be many outside the Strength-types and some Agility-types who could reach 27 points of Strength when they broke through the boundary. Not to mention that Sheyan also had curse-mixes to reduce their attributes!
After selecting the reward for breaking through the 50-point Strength boundary, Sheyan"s pure Strength without equipment reached 67 points. So, he had one more reward - the reward for breaking through the 50-point pure Strength boundary. The options were as follows.
[A: Base attribute ability reward II - Strength of Thorns: Your attack will get an additional damage of 1/3 of the total damage done to you by the target in the last 5 seconds. "The Power of Thorns" has a cooldown of 5 seconds, and the amount of additional damage will not exceed 600/1200 points (corresponding to contestants/storyline characters respectively)]
[B. Base attribute ability reward III - Strength of the Fanatic: Whenever your HP drops by 10%, your attack power will increase by 3% and your attack speed will increase by 5%. Even when you are not injured, you will have a bonus of 5% attack power and 10% attack speed.]
[C. Base attribute ability reward III - Strength of the Sky: Perform a Strength check for every successful hit on the enemy. If you pa.s.s the Strength check, there is a 25% chance to interrupt a random beneficial effect on the target (including, but not limited to, attribute buffs, protective layers, and aura effects). Lasts for 30 seconds. This ability can be repeatedly triggered, but there will only be one interrupted effect (unable to stack). This ability has domain precedence.]
[D. Base attribute ability reward III - Strength of the Earth: Whenever a Strength check is performed (including, but not limited to, attribute checks, equipment requirement checks, and skill checks), the Strength requirement is reduced by 25%. This effect has domain precedence.]
For these four choices, Sheyan still considered the problem from the perspective of the team. With the new addition of Zi and the successful promotion of Brother Black to Growth Hunter, the team"s damage output, which used to be their weakness, had received a significant boost.
Furthermore, Party Ace would have no problem recruiting strong damage dealers if they wanted to. Maybe they couldn"t attract natural monsters like Aziz, but those a tier below would line up for the opportunity to join them.
Therefore, Sheyan chose the unpopular ability, "Strength of the Sky". This was a very malicious ability that could null the opponent"s buff. Imagine if Skull"s metal armour enhancement on his subordinates suddenly disappeared after receiving Sheyan"s attack, or if the Glory Party suddenly lost Zeus" gravitational field, or if the magic s.h.i.+eld on mage contestants were suddenly gone. The effect even lasts for 30 seconds. Such a despicable ability!
For his secondary attribute (tertiary really), Sheyan unhesitatingly chose Perceptive Sense, and very simply chose the option to increase his Perceptive Sense by 15 points.
Sheyan realised that his Charm, Intelligence, and Spirit attributes had all reached 20 points, but there was no prompt to draw a reward. After an enquiry, he found out that the 20-point pure attribute reward was limited to normal contestants and reserve-duty Growth Hunters.
Once he became a Growth Hunter, the setting would become obsolete. This was akin to how an elementary student who could solve college problems was a genius, a child prodigy; but a college student who could solve college problems was something to be expected.
Sheyan felt that the explanation was quite reasonable. He thought back to his previous experience and couldn"t help but lament, "If only I knew....sigh."
Sheyan"s reaction implied that he did have a bit of regret. Although he had guessed this, and had recognised the importance of laying down a good foundation, but, after all, speculation was speculation. Before he saw it with his own eyes, he couldn"t be totally sure of his guesses.
If Sheyan could confirm beforehand the fact that all his base attributes would double, he estimated that he could hang on for at least three more worlds. By doing so, he should be able to reach the pure 50-point boundary in 2 attributes as a normal contestant.
Alas, the world had no cure for regret.
It also explained why Reef was so strong after his breakthrough, after staying for a long time as a reserve-duty Growth Hunter.
Sheyan stayed rooted to the spot. His past experienced slowly flowed through his mind like a river. After a long time, he sighed deeply.
Suddenly, Sheyan felt a quake under his feet. He looked towards the distance and saw that the barrier at the edge of the area had disappeared. A powerful force hid behind the dark, turbulent clouds. A large amount of blood-red lightning struck down to erode the edge of the s.p.a.ce. A blood-red lightning flashed, illuminating the darkness in a corner!
In the bright light, Sheyan saw numerous pipelines in the void that intertwined with each other like human blood vessels. The pipeline looked metallic, but they also had the flexibility of soft tissues. Sheyan could feel a large amount of electric current surging in them.
The life of this trial ground....was coming to an end.
Sheyan instantly put forth the request to leave the trial ground, but his request was not immediately implemented. Instead, he received a notification:
[Reserve-duty Growth Hunter No. 1018, due to your military rank, you received a reminder: you still have three unallocated free attribute points. If there are no special circ.u.mstances, you are advised to allocate them before leaving the trial ground.]
Sheyan stared blankly at the notification. The first thing he noticed was that the realm still addressed him as a reserve-duty Growth Hunter. Secondly, he realised that this was information that required a certain military rank to receive, so he immediately a.s.signed the three free attribute points to his Physique.
The collapse of the trial ground was in full force by now. The blood-red lightnings and black clouds greedily teared at the unresisting land. Sheyan once again issued a request for return. He disappeared instantly, to return back to the abandoned alien base below the Statue of Liberty.
After his return, Sheyan immediately realised the nightmare imprint on his chest was glowing brightly. It was also stinging hot. Notifications from the nightmare imprint appeared again:
[Contestant No. 1018, congratulations on officially pa.s.sing the boundary breakthrough trial to become a powerful Growth Hunter. Next, you have to further refine your path for growth! The t.i.tle of Growth Hunter only shows that you have successfully changed from a civilian to a beginner warrior!]
[Hint: From the moment you became a Growth Hunter, your main attributes are Strength and Physique. You need to spend 3 free attribute points to increase these attributes by 1.]
[Hint: From the moment you became a Growth Hunter, your secondary attribute is Perceptive Sense. You need to spend 5 free attribute points to increase this attribute by 1.]
[Hint: From the moment you became a Growth Hunter, you need to spend 7 free attribute points to increase all other base attributes by 1.]
(Author"s note: At the beginning of the previous LOTR arc, a lot of people questioned how the mage contestant, Yerna, could stay alive despite being ganged up on like that. Well, now you know.)