The Flesh-King howled in pain as Raj squeezed every last drop of his power into his Dao Anchor, expelling it outwards in one final push. The princelings weren’t given even a second of respite, falling instantly to the aura that encompassed Raj. Their master was stronger than that, however, and refused to succumb so easily. It started to fall apart in a literal sense, with flesh sloughing off of it. Whatever it was doing seemed to be working, despite the high cost, and the Flesh-King pushed forward once more.
“It’s making a suicide run!” Raj weakly called out. As the abomination kept charging, picking up speed as it got closer, it growled at him, arms poised to attack. “Buy me some time Trixie!” Heeding his call, the fairy let loose a Mana Bolt, temporarily blinding the beast while staying away from the bulk of the danger, so as to not get in Raj’s way. The monster reeled back for just a moment, but that was all the time he needed. He drew his sword and charged, leaping high in the last possible moment. He empowered his blade with Dao energy, and, as his foe recovered from the flashbang and met his attack, he let loose a Mana Slash.
His last ditch effort cut through whatever remained of the beast, and with one last screech, the Flesh-King fell, tumbling backwards. Raj slumped in exhaustion before shortly following suit, his vision going black.
*****
Raj woke up to a slew of notifications that he brushed aside for a moment as he tried to gather his bearings.
After a moment of respite, he swiped them into existence.
Congratulations!
You have held out until Wave 25!
For defending the House for 2 full days, you will be granted 2% additional Tutorial Points to be added at the end of the Tutorial!
For your efforts, you will also receive a title that varies depending on the success of the competitor.
That prompt was immediately followed by said title.
Tutorial Challenge: Level 25 - Reach and defeat Level 25 of the Tutorial Challenge. +50 to all stats.
His jaw dropped. 50?!? That’s ridiculous! If it were real life it would have been one thing, but the fact that it had just a simulation, and his life was in no danger whatsoever?
Intuitively, he understood that it still took personal skill to get to a certain point, but he didn’t agree with the lack of real danger. Then he paused. When did I become so barbaric? He thought in an amused tone. Despite his own musings, however, he was a fool to get mad at a crap ton of free stat points. He kept skimming his notifications.
Congratulations!
You have leveled up x1!
Stats have been distributed.
He barely read that prompt, the newly updated status screen he had capturing his full attention.
Status
Name: Rajeev Narayanan
Race: Human(H)
Class: Swordsman[(Common-G) lvl 24]
Profession: None
Titles: Giant Slayer, Vitality I, Vitality II, Strength I, Strength II, Enlightened One(G), Agility I, Agility II, Endurance I, Endurance II, Intelligence I, Intelligence II, Wisdom I, Wisdom II, Dao Disciple, Tutorial Challenge: Level 25
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
HP: 1630/1630
MP: 1220/1220
SP: 1350/1350
Stats
Strength: 164(157)
Agility: 177(164)(+5)
Vitality: 163(156)
Endurance: 135(129)
Intelligence: 122(117)
Wisdom: 122(117)
Free Points: 5
Dao: Fragment of Reality, Dao Anchor(Partial)
Class Skills: Mana Slash(Common), Dash(Uncommon)
Profession Skills: None
General Skills: Identify(Common)
“Holy shit!” He swore, drawing an annoyed look from Trixie. Then she saw his stats and shook her head in disbelief.
“I got the same title as you, but it’s still ridiculous,” she said. “So much growth in what was honestly pretty low risk.” Raj just nodded his head as he continued to peruse his status. There was a lot to unpack.
For starters, aside from the insane one that had boosted his overall power, he had gotten a bunch of other titles for hitting 100 in every stat, an insane feat.
Strength II - Reach 100 base strength. +10 STR.
Vitality II - Reach 100 base vitality. +10 VIT.
Endurance II - Reach 100 base endurance. +10 END.
Intelligence II - Reach 100 base intelligence. +10 INT.
Wisdom II - Reach 100 base wisdom. +10 WIS.
After a moment of toggling, he changed his interface to only show the newest title in the chain, as it would start getting overbearing to have so many whenever he wanted to check his stats.
Titles: Giant Slayer, Vitality II, Strength II, Enlightened One(G), Agility II, Endurance II, Intelligence II , Wisdom II, Dao Disciple, Tutorial Challenge: Level 25
He still had his Free Points to assign from his level-up, which he decided to pour into Agility. He also didn’t understand why his Dao Anchor was listed as partial. He looked within himself, closing his eyes and feeling the Dao in his body. While there was no clear image, he could feel how incomplete the Anchor felt, as though the most vital part of it was missing. Dismissing it for now, he checked the Tutorial Panel, toggling it with a thought to only show him the time remaining in the tutorial.
Countdown: 19 days, 11 hours and 36 minutes
He whistled slightly, realizing he spent roughly a third of the entire tutorial time in that challenge. He did some rough calculations, wondering how he had spent 3 full days. It doesn’t make any sense…
Then he realized he had spent a day in stasis because of his simulated death. He turned to his companion on that note, examining her status.
Status
Name: L’thsnixzsiarla Velair
Race: Fairy(H)
Class: Mage[(Common-H) lvl 17]
Profession: None
Titles: Intelligence I, Wisdom I, Agility I, Vitality I, Strength I, Endurance I, Tutorial Challenge: Level 25
HP: 810/810
MP: 950/950
SP: 720/720
Stats
Strength: 64
Agility: 88
Vitality: 81
Endurance: 72
Intelligence: 95
Wisdom: 95
Free Points: 0
Class Skills: Mana Bolt(Common)
Profession Skills: None
General Skills: Identify(Common)
The gains on all fronts were insane, to say the least. Between Raj and his companion, they had essentially doubled their fighting capacity, and Raj had considered himself to be a very capable fighter beforehand. He looked over his titles once again, wondering why he wasn’t getting any more percentage boosts. Trixie had already mentioned that titles, such as his Giant Slayer, had restrictions in place to ensure they couldn’t be abused by killing something level 2 at level 1, for example. Maybe because it is a tutorial, it doesn’t give out advanced titles? He supposed that would make sense.
He was suddenly thrust out of his inner ramblings by a scream echoing out not too far from their position, followed by the sounds of battle.
