11. New Skill

Mike almost instantly stood behind Jack. He moved so fast, his movement was practically instantaneous, a sonic boom was also heard during the movement.

Without even thinking, Mike wrapped Jack into his big burly arms and lifted him away from the mass of mangled bones and flesh. Despite the large man ripping him away, Jack fought to get back at the beast, his mind only thinking about destroying it with everything in his power.

But Mike would not let go.

He had seen something like this in the past. Back when he was about 10, a kid joked about how Jack's parents were eaten by a monster and Jack utterly destroyed the kid. Being only 10, Jack didn't kill him but he got very close. Jack beat the boy until he was a bloody pulp, covered in tears, blood and vomit. It was only his friends that held him back from extinguishing the child's life. That day, Mike realized the anger within Jack and how much he needed to control it. Years of therapy seemed to help, but apparently it had never been completely solved.

"Get off me" Jack said after a couple seconds of struggling. His anger had diminished slightly and his full faculty of reason was quickly deployed, letting him realise it was futile to resist Mike's hold.

"Kid, you have to control yourself. This is not good" Mike said in Jack's ear. Concern and worry evident in his voice.

"I'm fine. This is what warriors do, they kill"

"This is not fine Jack, if this was in the wild a monster could sneak up on you and kill you at the same time you were mushing your fists into a broken corpse".

"It wont happen again, I promise".

"I'll believe it when I see it".

With that, Mike released his hold on Jack and let Jack's tired body slump to the floor. With his adrenaline running so high and him using all the strength he could to utterly pulverise the beast, his body was beyond exhausted.

But despite his physical exhaustion, he was still able to pull up his status and distribute his attribute points. Knowing now that he had to have the stamina to actually conclude fights and be able to still kill afterwards, he distributed all 5 points into durability.

Durability dealt with the strength of his skin and muscles, not only decreasing his chance of a monster tearing through his skin, but also increasing the amount of strain he could put on his muscles before they tired. Most combat classes invested heavily in durability as it was difficult to raise without levelling up, but to Support and Worker classes, it was less important than Strength or Intelligence.

Feeling slightly refreshed after increasing his durability, he stood up and began to walk to the side of the arena where there was a seating area for combatants. It took a lot of effort to walk there but when he finally managed, he slumped down in the chair like a ragdoll. It was a very similar chair to those that the audience sat on, but it was made of Manerium which made it much more durable.

Pulling up his status again, he checked out his new skill.

[Insect Soldier Lv1]

Every sovereign must be able to defend their subjects, and to defend them also means being one with them.

Allows one to create a biomineral exoskeleton of one of the species within your World. By doing this, all attributes are raised in accordance with the species capabilities.

Current Forms allowed:

Lasius Platythorax form – x2 strength, x1.3 speed x1.5 durability

Mana Cost: 200

Duration: 1 hour

Cooldown: 30 minutes

(True ant stats divided by 10 due to level)

/This is based on the ability to lift a certain amount of body weight, how fast they can move comparatively, and how durable chitin is compared to human skin\

"THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING" Jack exclaimed, pure happiness written all over his face.

"Oi language" Mike said as he smacked him round the head. He was very bipolar when it came to swearing.

"Mike, I got a proper combat skill!" Jack excitedly observed. With this, he knew he would be able to kill Monsters with his bare fists rather than relying on summons. Whilst he knew his summons could be very useful in killing beasts, something within him yearned to get in the midst of the battle and tear the monsters limb from limb. It was the sadistic side of him, the side he tried so hard to shun to the back of his mind. But whenever he thought of the Abyssal beasts that took his parents from him, that side reared its ugly head and attempted to seize control of his mind. During day to day activities, he was able to control it, but as shown by the bloody mess on the floor, he wasn't always able to.

"What's the skill?" Mike asked with a grin, if Jack got a useful combat skill he could employ one of his favorite methods of training. Beating Jack to pieces.

"Its called Insect soldier and it boosts my stats, and says that it gives me an exoskeleton, similar to those of my ants" Jack excitedly exclaimed. He looked a bit like a little child at Christmas explaining to his nan why his new present was so cool as he talked the skill.

"Hmmm okay, how much does it boosts your stats by?" Mike asked whilst rubbing his beard.

"My strength doubles! And my speed and durability are boosted a little bit aswell but not doubled. Plus, it says that as the skill levels up, the effects will increase until they hit the maximum." 

"That is actually really good for someone at your level, and even mine to be honest. With these kinds of boosts, you can probably just spend all your points from levelling up on Wisdom and Intelligence, I recommend Wisdom first as that will let you recover your mana quicker."

"Ok yeah but first, I'm a use this real this as soon as my mana recovers"

With the skill taking 200 mana to use, Jack would have to refill the majority of his mana, and with 10 Wisdom, that would take roughly two hours give or take. 

In the meantime, Jack was sent for sprints. Rather than long and arduous marathons like earlier, Jack sprinted as fast as he could across the arena and every time he was slower than a previous attempt he had to do 50 pushups, he did a lot of pushups.

Despite how painful it was, the training actually benefited Jack quite a bit. Due to how weak Jack was, the push-ups actually netted him another point in Strength despite only doing it for two hours.

"Mike, my mana is full." Jack shouted as he looked at his status in between sets of running and push ups. By this time, it was well into the afternoon and the summer sun slowly descending into the horizon casted an orange haze across the city.

"What you waiting for then?" Mike called back. Whilst Jack was doing his exercises, Mike had returned to one of the seats in the combatants area, it gave him a full view of the arena which was helpful for making sure Jack was doing his exercise correctly.

"ok here goes" Jack whispered to himself as he activated the skill. All it took was a mental command to activate the skill and his mana moved on its own.

Jack's mana nearly completely drained from his body as it began to float around his body. One of the tethers to his minions pulled and strengthened, some mana flowing back through the link until it joined with Jack's mana in the air. Shifting from the typical pure blue color, the mana began to darken until it was entirely black.