Bonus Chapter!(500PS)
...
"Holy Shit!" Nathan's eyes widened in complete disbelief and he quickly opened up his status to check the point value. And indeed, he had 90 points waiting for him.
90. Fucking. Points.
"That was well worth the risk." Nathan nodded, feeling incredibly giddy inside his heart. He knew how powerful the Catoblepas had been.
Its kicks would have been lethal. Its breath would have been lethal. If he had been swept up in the collateral damage with the trees, that would have no doubt done severe internal damage and then he would have been disposed of by its breath. Heck, with how powerful its muscles were, he was sure if the beast hadn't been so sluggish and slow, he wouldn't stand a single chance.
But it had worked. Somehow, he had managed to climb up it's body, somehow, his sword had been enough to damage it, somehow, he hadn't been flung off and somehow, he had killed it.
Nathan was at an absolute adrenaline high right now. He did not even mind that he was soaked in the monster's blood or that the Catoblepas had already dropped the trophy.
In Greek Mythology, there was never a story in which the Catoblepas was killed. The moss and vegetation that had grown over it's body was telling of its age. And now, he had slain the Catoblepas.
"YEAHHHHH!!!!!" He got off the ground and threw his arms upwards, cheering to his heart's content.
When he had calmed down, he looked at the trophy he had received.
It was a wildebeest skull, the size of his torso. Evidently, the skull had shrunken in size, but Nathan didn't mind that. Trophies weren't meant to be life sized anyways. Even in Percy Jackson, Nathan remembered reading that the Nemean Lion drops a jacket for some reason.
"A shame no one will know my legend. Sigh!" With a smile, he went over to the trophy and crouched to pick it up. But just before he did, his hand twitched and he stopped.
His instincts warned him at the last moment. The trophy held lingering poison.
"Even its skull is deadly?" He clicked his tongue and used the sword to pick it up and stash it into his inventory. He looked back at the destruction the 'fight' had caused. In a straight line through the woods, a giant highway had been carved out of destroyed trees, withered grass and ruined soil. It looked like some kind of deforestation project with how every tree had been completely splintered and uprooted.
Nathan gulped, re-evaluating the Catoblepas in his mind. Once again, he promised he wasn't suicidal.
Everything had worked out hadn't it?
And so, soaking in monster blood and carrying a big smile on his face, Nathan carried on towards the cave he had stumbled upon. Finding it was not going to be hard. He just had the follow the trail of destruction some distance and go towards a hill.
...
Nathan hadn't managed to find a water source nearby, so he had decided to use some of his drinking water to wash his face. The blood was impeding some of his vision and it wasn't very fragrant. Besides that, he decided to leave it be until he came across a creek or a river. Besides, the worst of it had been faced by his clothes which had now dried up soaked in monster blood.
The sky was already beginning to go dark and so, Nathan decided to camp here for the night. Sitting on the cold, somewhat damp ground of the cave, he opened his status again and decided to get some much needed improvements to his status.
First and foremost, he got to improving his gear. He had previously tested if he could make a Transmutation Cube. He could and the cost was 70 points, a seemingly daunting task to work towards previously. But now that he had gained 90 points in a single go, he was willing to invest 70 of them into it.
And what did the Transmutation Cube do, you may ask?
It had a single basic function. It converted the trophies dropped by monsters into Customization Points!
(A/N: Thank you Kamikaze_Eagle for the idea.)
It was simply an investment that would give instant returns! Maybe he would not be able to use all 90 points for his own improvement, but each monster trophy he got would give him exponentially more results in the future; more than just being for show.
He drew a cube in the custom order tab, made it look like completely plain and gleaming like silver and finalized the order.
Although visual changes didn't add any points, he was burnt out by the earlier battle and wasn't too keen on editing the design of a cube of all things.
[!]
[Your order has been completed!]
[You have gained Transmutation Cube!]
[!!!]
[You have made your first item!]
[Item section had been opened! Please check your status!]
Nathan took in the information and nodded. Opening his status, he saw what the notification was about.
[Name: Nathan Hill
Occupation: Hunter
Earned Titles: None
Loaded Items: None
Perks: Monster Lore; Hunter's Instincts(+); Blessing of Mana-Yood-Sushai
Skills: Swordplay; Archery(+); Mist(+)
Physical Condition:
Fitness: +
Spirit: +
Insight: +]
He read through the description of the section and smiled. Loaded items meant things he could physically load into his body. An example would be wings or a new skeleton or lungs. A loaded item could either replace an existing body part or make an entirely new one. In fact, even the super soldier serum or any virus he could make to increase his physical or mental capabilities would also qualify as Loaded Items.
A Transmutation Cube did not qualify as a 'Loadable Item' since it wasn't physically supposed to be on him at all times. It was more along the lines of a normal weapon.
Another curious thing to note was that he had not gotten the notification when he edited his sword. The system seemed to put a clear distinction between edited items and newly made items.
But what if Nathan were to completely change an item? Like making a sword into an axe or a spear? Would that still qualify as 'editing' or 'creating?'
Probably editing. He mused.
Pulling the Cube out of his inventory, he felt the sheer weight of the thing and found it surprisingly heavy to lift. It made him remember Tungsten Cubes.
The object was as large as his hear and shone with a metallic luster.
Then, without waiting, he reached into the air and pulled out all the trophies he had received until now, except for the Catoblepas skull.
His total trophies consisted of 2 Draugr eyes, a Cynocephali tooth and a Wampus Cat pelt.
He sacrificed the draugr eyes first. The eyes melted into the cube without resistance and a notification appeared in Nathan's view.
[You have gained 2 Customization Points!]
His eyes widened, shocked at the value.
A single draugr had given him 0.7, and two only amounted to 1.4. But now, their trophies had given him a whole 2 points!
Holding his chin, Nathan began thinking.
"Is the inherent value of trophies more than the monster kills themselves? That can't be it. But the trophies can be sacrificed to gods. And getting materials out of prey is one of the things a hunter does... maybe putting more than one item at once does this?" He wondered aloud but there was no concrete way to test his hypothesis.
Shaking his head, Nathan put the Cynocephali tooth into the cube and another notification appeared.
[You have gained 0.6 Customization Point!]
And next came the pelt.
[You have gained 1.7 Customization Points!]
This brought his overall point value to 24.3!
"Damn." Nathan said.
So far, every sacrificed trophy had yielded more points than he had gotten from killing the monsters themselves, well, except for the Cynocephali. Why was that?
"Should I test it on the skull?" He furrowed his brows and went into deep thought. Some time passed and eventually, he gritted his teeth and exclaimed "Fuck it! Take the skull!"
He opened his inventory and dropped the skull right on top of the cube.
The skull was evidently too large but the cube had little trouble melting it down and swallowing it up.
Soon, another notification appeared.
[You have gained 40 Customization Points!]
The result made Nathan very happy, but it also got him thinking.
What determined how good of a reward the trophies got him?
He thought and thought, and eventually, a light bulb went off in his head.
Draugr eyes were always described to be glowing and sometimes functioned as alchemists materials. They clearly had some value from a mythological standpoint.
As for the Wampus Cat, it was a leading monster in Cherokee culture and one who had become something of a folktale in many parts of America.
Whereas, the Cynocephali were not only obscure, but also locked any real mythological standing in the mythos. Their teeth certainly didn't have any value in the myths.
It was the same for the Catoblepas. While it was a large and powerful monster, it had not appeared in many stories and was oftentimes only talked about in ancient bestiaries. It had dropped a trophy, but the said trophy lacked the necessary mythological importance as say, the pelt of a Nemean Lion or even the eyes of a Draugr. After all, a dragur had received a net increase on it's value, while the skull had dropped more than 50% of it's value!
The only reason the reward still seemed absurd was because the beast itself had that value. There was little value in the spoils themselves because it had never been killed in the myths!
The more Nathan thought of this, the more concrete the hypothesis seemed.
Does this mean if I hunted something really strong and mythologically active and then received its trophy, I would get even more returns from the trophy than killing the beast? Now the Nemean Lion looks real tantalizing. It's pelt was worn by Herakles. Its spoils are bound to have even more significance. Before his thoughts could spiral out of control, he reeled them back in and focused back on upgrades.
Due to the cube, he had recovered to 64.3 points!
First and foremost, he made the monster pointing compass, costing him 10 points.
Second, he sought to upgrade both his Fitness and Insight for 10 points total. He had refrained from upgrading spirit because he didn't wish to delve into magic just yet. The time would come, it just wasn't now.
Then, he did something he had been waiting to do for a long time.
He edited Monster Lore.
'Gain the name and all necessary knowledge of any monster you fight.' The starting cost was 150 points. He edited it down to "gaining the name and weakness" and that brought the cost down exponentially.
The upgrade would cost 25 points, but he felt it was a good investment.
And that left him with 19.3 points.
He scratched his chin and upgraded Hunter's Instincts with 10 points.
The icon turned from silver to gold and with another + sign appearing near it, Nathan was sure it had worked.
He invested a point into swordplay, and 3 into Archery, bringing them to the next level.
With 5.3 points left, he used them to upgrade the Sharpness of his sword.
And so, satisfied with the upgrades, Nathan set up camp, ate his fill for the night, and drifted into sleep.
...
...
[Name: Nathan Hill
Occupation: Hunter
Earned Titles: None
Loaded Items: None
Perks: Monster Lore; Hunter's Instincts(++); Blessing of Mana-Yood-Sushai
Skills: Swordplay(+); Archery(++); Mist(+)
Physical Condition:
Fitness: ++
Spirit: +
Insight: ++]
[Items: Celestial Bronze Sword(Frost, Sharpness), Enchanted Bow, Enchanted Quiver, Enchanted Arrows(30), Transmutation Cube, Monster Compass]
...
A/N: Drop a Review!