Chapter 38: Skill Book and New Challenge!

The bat came soaring back and sunk into Lucas's hand heavily.

The creature in front of him continued to try and get the sand out of its eyes, completely undisturbed by the strike Lucas attempted on it.

The time the creature spent distracted was just enough for Lucas to get off his <Appraisers Eye> Skill.

<<Name>: Gill. <Levels>: Tier: 3: <Ogre LV:278> <Titles>: Runt <Age: 5 Years old>>

<Description>: Gill the Ogre is a name that has never been spoken before. Gill, the self-named Ogre, is rather feisty and likes to eat food raw. Since he is a part of the Ogre race he was born with incredible defensive abilities as well as titanic-like strength. Gill however has a terrible weakness...

'Fuck you, you stupid system!' Lucas cursed at the system blatantly as it deliberately left out the only important bit of information.

'Level 278... A tier 3 creature that is so close to home base. This thing has got to go, but the real question is how?'

'Obviously, it has a weakness as the system stated. But what is it?'

Lucas observed the Ogre for a moment, looking for weaknesses, before coming up with only one answer.

'Its eyes seem to be the only thing not covered by that thick red skin,'

'It also seems to be the only reason I haven't been killed already,' Noted Lucas as he saw the creature continue to rub its eyes in pain from the sand he 'magicked' into its eyes.

Lucas sent another wave of sand into its eyes with a wave of his gauntleted hand and smiled at the creature's pain.

The sand wasn't stopped by the hands that were protecting its eyes as they simply slipped through the cracks like parasites worming their way through into the victim's body.

'The creature also seems to be incredibly unintelligent... It also seems relatively slow in nature, meaning it is easy to dodge.'

'Its weapon doesn't seem to be too potent as well' Lucas thought as he looked at the huge wooden tree that it seemed to have plucked out of the ground.

As Lucas was pondering on how to fight the creature, the Ogre suddenly stopped trying to get the sand out of its eyes and roared in rage.

Gill grabbed his club and half blindly started to slam it into the general direction of Lucas in a flurry of blows.

Lucas tried to dodge the first of many club attacks but found it incredibly difficult through the blood-filled cave.

He tried to jump to the side but found that he tripped and fumbled to the ground, completely at the mercy of the Ogre's club.

Lucas raised Indissolubilis in a gamble to save himself and found that the Ogre far outpaced him in the strength stat.

<The user has taken critical damage! The user has 143 hit points remaining.>

The club was promptly raised off of Lucas and came crashing down once more.

His entire body felt like it was being broken bit by bit as he activated <Sandstorm Blitz> once more.

His body flew through the air out of the cave and he was back in the parking lot.

A roar echoed from the cave before the entire landscape started to rumble.

'This can't be good,' Lucas thought as he picked himself back up.

Lucas shrugged off the damage as he started to heal in an instant after taking damage.

'I'm still low on health and my body hurts like hell... But I should be able to fight this thing if I can stay on this concrete,'

Lucas was about to leave after seeing that the Ogre hadn't come out but then a massive hand hit the top of the cave and the Ogre's giant body was slowly heaved onto the pavement of the parking lot.

Lucas, seeing the beast in a position in which it couldn't defend itself, threw his bat with newfound vigor.

The bat soared through the air and struck the eye of the Ogre. It sunk a good inch into the creature's skull before bouncing out by some magical force.

'System! Activate the following skills: <Sprint>, <Sensory Overdrive>, and <Mental Barrier> Around myself in the form of armor.' Lucas commanded and immediately felt his mind stretch around his body in the form of some sort of protective barrier.

His senses had become sharpened but so had his sense of pain. Pain wracked his mind but he ignored it and focused on the target at hand.

'My strikes at melee are stronger now due to Gauntlet of The Everchanging Elements. So looks like I'm not gonna be able to sit back and throw my bat like I usually do if I want to get any meaningful damage in,'

Lucas focused his gauntlet on his feet and focused on imbuing it with the power of the winds and sure enough, he found that his speed had increased by a massive amount at the cost of 10 points of mana.

He lowered himself down and launched himself forward in a dead sprint as the Ogre was still stumbling around from having just gotten its weight over the cliff that dropped down into the cave.

The bat, raised above his head, cracked down upon the head of the beast and Lucas felt his bones reverberate with the feedback as if he had struck metal.

A small dent had appeared within the Ogre's skull however and he did seem to make the creature suffer some damage.

Lucas immediately backstepped and moved out of range of the massive creature.

'This is going to be a tedious fight. At this pace, I will be able to take down the creature but probably only after a few hundred blows,'

"Alright, Fucker, let's get down to pound town!" Lucas shouted at the angry ogre before dashing forward once more.

The ogre tried dodging but instead of moving out of the way, it instead stumbled to the ground, only giving Lucas a better angle to crack at its eye.

He felt that there was less resistance in the eye compared to the skull but there was still quite a bit of tension remaining.

He felt his bat, which was surrounded by shredding winds and bits of sand, tear into the eye of the ogre and felt the blades of the bat elongate inside of it and churn it into butter.

The Ogre released a scream of pain before swatting at its eye.

<The user has taken 217 points of damage!>

<The user is currently at 34 hit points.>

Lucas laughed maniacally at the Ogre's attempt at survival.

"You Dumb Ass! You just pushed me further into your skull!" Lucas yelled while getting a mouthful of eyeball material in his mouth.

Lucas, despite the disgusting fluid in his mouth, Pushed forward and spent his remaining mana and mental strength diving deeper into the creature's skull, hoping desperately to turn the Ogre's brain into mush.

The creature tried to pound at Lucas but only found that it was pounding its head senselessly.

After a few minutes of struggle Lucas finally reached the creature's brain and after a few seconds of slicing and dicing, he felt the Ogre's body spasm and fall into the cave once more.

Moments passed as the body of the ogre lay against the bloody floor. The creature's eyeball was just a mess of goop and there was no sight of Lucas anywhere.

Silence filled the cave and nothing could be heard but the slurping of brain fluid leaking out of the Ogre's skull.

After what felt like forever a hand ripped out into the air, a gauntlet brilliantly displayed on its face with a beautiful black chrome bat exiting the creature's eye.

Lucas finally breached the surface of the eyeball and instantly vomited the remaining content that was in his stomach.

He gripped onto the corners of the ogre's face and pitifully fell to the ground. He took deep breathes as he heaved up stomach acid onto the ground once more.

"Why the hell do I have to do this to myself?! Couldn't I have just run away?" Lucas screamed at himself as he found himself puking once more.

---

After an unknown amount of time, Lucas finally managed to recover from the previous traumatizing experience and managed to sit up straight.

Many notifications popped up in his vision but before he looked at them he instantly canceled all his current skills to prevent stamina drain.

---

<The user has killed a Tier 3, Level 278 Ogre! The user has received 27,000 XP and has received the following title: <Monster Slayer>.>

<The user has cleared a System Generated Encounter. The user has received additional rewards that are as follows:>

-D grade skill book: Ogre's Strength

-10,000 XP

-1 skill point

<The user has leveled up Evolution: Infinite to Level: 35. The user has received 130 stat points!>

<The user has leveled up Relic Master to Level: 36. The user has gained 60 stat points!>

<View D grade skill book?>

<Allocate Stat points?>

<<Fighting Style: Psychic Club> leveled up to level 8.>

<<Sprint> leveled up to level 10. Ready for evolution!>

<<Dragon Skin> leveled up to level 4.>

<<Sensory Overdrive> leveled up to level 10. Ready for evolution!>

<New challenge available in the tournament!>

---

'Holy cow that's a lot of text...' Lucas sighed internally as he realized he would have to do more math.

'More levels at least... Closer to reaching tier 2 than ever,'

Lucas opened up his stat sheet to figure out what to increase and pondered over their values.

---

[Stats]

<Strength: 84 + 20 = 104>

<Dexterity: 108 = 108>

<Endurance: 230 + 20 =250>

<Control: 79 = 79>

<Intelligence: 71 = 71>

<Power: 70 = 70>

<Charm: 65 = 65>

<Psionics: 221 = 221>

<Skill Points: 1>

<Stat Points: 190>

---

"Hmm... That is a lot to unload,"

'I need to think about a way to actually use that <Interface Connection> skill,' Lucas thought about allocating his stat points first.

'I think Intelligence would probably be the most useful stat for that. Understanding seems to be the key thing that I will need so...'

Lucas also had another reason he wanted to increase intelligence, but he locked it into the deepest recess of his mind. He was just too stupid, and deep down inside, he knew it.

'System, Put 190 points into intelligence!'

<Done~!>

Immediately Lucas felt a flood of information fill his mind. It wasn't new information... just old information re-remembered.

After a few moments of adjusting, Lucas found his clarity of thought increase 10 fold.

'And just like that... Intelligence is now my highest stat,'

The next thing that interested Lucas was the new tournament feature. He quickly opened it up to see what it was so that he could prepare accordingly.

---

<Tournament Tab>

<Current Objective: Kill as many monsters as possible in 60 days>

<Current remaining time: 60 days>

<Current Leader>: Lucas Walker<Forge's Heir><Fairy Frien><Forced Divinity>: 2 Killed

<Current Place>: First.

<Your current rewards are as follows>:

+100,000 XP

+1 skill point

+1 random B grade skill book

---

'Interesting...'

'Seems like lady luck has favored me once more~'

Lucas stared at the screen for a good 10 minutes before realizing that there were other things that needed to be addressed.

'Now what to do next...'