SWNOVELXO Chapter 19: Evolution classes
THUD.
The bear's dead body hit against the ground with a heavy thump, and the group exhaled to catch their breaths.
Of the three, Jenny had been the most significant contributor, wielding the strongest firepower with her tank which totally left her exhausted afterwards. Then after briefly glancing at each other, they turned their attention to the others who came with them on this so, who were finished dealing with zombies on their side.
…
On the eastern side of the open field, two young men, students around 19 to 21 years old were engaged in their own battle.
Ironically, their names were John and Joe. A few days ago, during introductions, Joe had been forced to use his surname to avoid confusion with the other Joe, now deceased.
John, meanwhile, had begun to take pride in his name after Jon looked at him with a hint of surprise.
John possessed a mind-related skill, something he disliked. Until now, he didn't even know that Jon, someone he almost admired, had a similar ability. John's skill, though misleadingly named "Mind Control," in its basic form allowed him to read his opponent's intentions. While it currently only offered a glimpse into basic movements, John knew that with mastery, it could evolve into a formidable skill for spying, tracking, and more.
And Joe, now called Simon to differentiate had a skill called "Double." It allowed him to temporarily multiply a single stat by two for five seconds, depending on the amount of mana he willing to sacrifice.
While the ability seemed simple at first glance, it held monstrous potential. As Simon's stats grew into the hundreds or thousands and the duration of this skill increased, his power would become even more dangerous. Armed with a spear, Simon could double his speed and strength, delivering devastating attacks.
In just under three minutes, the duo had dispatched nearly fifteen zombies in their vicinity.
Not far from them, two girls from Cynthia's group, Mia and Trudy were fighting zombies near the hostel. Both appeared ordinary at first glance, but their physical abilities hinted at something extraordinary.
Around 20 or 21 years old, Mia controlled mist, using it to disorient her enemies by obscuring their vision and sense of direction. Trudy, true to her quiet nature, had a skill named stealth. She preferred to stay unnoticed, slipping through battles without drawing attention.
Many people might have lamented their luck at receiving skills that weren't flashy or obvious in their power. But what they failed to realize was that every skill had its purpose. Whether linked to their personalities, ambitions, or hidden desires, each person's ability was a reflection of their potential.
Another student in the group named Jude. He gained part characteristics from anything he touched, so placing his hand on the ground his hand was fully coated with rocks from the ground.
Then there was one of the security agents who wielded a massive hammer, a treasure gotten from a core and possessed the skill "Wind Gale," combining the force of wind with his hammer's crushing blows to obliterate his foes.
Most of the group hadn't even unlocked secondary skills yet, though they were just beginning to. If there was one thing anyone could say about them, it was that their skills were strong.
At this point, their levels were now within 7 to 10 and by killing more of the zombies it was steadily increasing.
Finally, after about five minutes, all the zombies in the area had been taken care of.
As one of the fighters dealt the final blow on the last zombie, he glanced towards Jon just to realize they had already defeated the bears they set to fight.
With nothing left to be done, they moved towards Jon's group where the bear had fallen.
"Then let's continue." And upon reaching him, they decided to continue. This was only just the entrance of the cafeteria, and they hadn't even done what they were meant to do, so they decided to venture deeper into the school.
And they hadn't gotten to a far distance when they saw signs of monsters again.
Maybe it was due to the scale of their battle with the bears, other monsters where attracted towards this direction.
RAAARRRR...
Coming into their view with the sound of a roar were,
"Get ready" Jon and the rest assumed their stance as the monster began rushing towards them.
"Are those?"
"Yes, they do..."
Jenny and Cynthia couldn't believe what they were seeing at this point. It was just shocking.
"Tigers..." Jon's mutter trailed off as he saw the monsters approaching. They were actually tigers, the size, the face, their gaits, everything about them was that of a tiger. Except, these ones had extra characteristics.
The first was, they were white in color and had black stripes all over their body, the second was, they had massive and long canine teeth, they were so long, it reached their jaw and that was when their mouths were opened, and the last were their overly long claws that were sharper than the tigers they knew.
'So, 20 tigers, the 7 at the front are larger than the remaining 13. their levels should be...' With his calculative skills, Jon already began thinking and planning on how the battle was going to go.
Now the tigers had gotten to about 50 meters.
Then suddenly, brown chains began crawling through the ground and wrapping themselves over the bodies of the tigers. However,
CRACK...CRACK
Due to the distance they were from the tigers and because she was trying to hold 20 tigers at the same time, the chains didn't them for a long time.
However, they had slowed down their momentum and given Jenny time to prepare something.
BOOOOM
The sudden explosion rocked the ground and spread dust all over the area. And when the dust cleared, they could see that two of the tigers leading the pack had already fallen.
"Phew..." Jenny then exhaled and then activated her bracelet as she recovered her mana, oblivious to the looks the remaining scout group were giving her.
'So it wasn't only him,' the remaining among the scouts shook the absurd situation.
Who didn't know how powerful a modern tanker was, and the fact she was able to replicate it. Though they hadn't seen the damage a tanker could make, they didn't think it would be so much different with what she did.
Nevertheless, Jon and Cynthia were not surprised by her feat, they had seen her do it before, so made them act and think while others were still amazed.
So while the tigers were still shocked from their comrades death, Jon and Cynthia moved leaving behind an order.
"Take on the smaller ones."
Whoosh...
Jon released a bluish fog from his body as he approached to bound their movements.
RARRRR
It seemed the tigers noticed something wrong and began roaring trying to break free with strength, and it was working.
'They are really struggling?' Jon was shocked at what he was seeing. The best any creature or monster had done was budge at his fog that bound them, but struggle in this way, it was a first.
Then all of a sudden,
THUD...
The sound of a tiger's head hitting against the ground gathered their attention. And behind the now headless tiger they could all see Cynthia with blood dripping around from her sword made of blade.
RARRRRRR...
The tigers immediately became angry at the death of their comrade and began roaring out in anger, and soon enough they broke out of the fog's influence.
Cynthia, who already knew what she had done took off immediately the head fell to the ground, so after breaking of the influence of the fog, they chased her.
It was like they had forgotten about the enemy they left behind to chase another enemy. Jon then followed behind.
Jenny maneuvered around the area continuously as the tigers kept chasing her. If there was one thing Jon current had over Jenny and Cynthia, it was his physical stats, and that included his speed which allowed him to keep up with them.
He could overtake, however he wanted to see what Cynthia was trying to do. All for her to suddenly step on the ground and boost herself upwards to the sky.
And the tigers then slowed down their momentum and roaring to the sky, waiting her her to come down.
'Now.'
Jon who saw it as a sign immediately boosted forward and jumped. Activating his 'Moon gaze' he spotted a particular spot within their neck, it was their weak point.
Then applying the slashing effect to his sword and moon energy,
SLASH...
RARRRRR
His target tiger immediately was immediately split apart form its weak point, however it didn't stop there, the attack also cut through another tiger's body, leaving a deep gash on it.
As soon as he landed back to the ground, he heard Jenny shout,
"JON, MOVE"
At the signal, Jon immediately spread his bluish fog around and moved out of the way. Then,
BOOOOOM
With another blast from her tanker, another explosion erupted.
And as the explosion cleared, the result was before them. Two tigers got into the explosions and died as a result, leaving the last tiger critically injured.
'Wait, is it going to happen again?' Jon looked to his side, however he could only see Jenny. Then,
THUD...
'Ah, she did it again.' Jon shook his head as he watched the already familiar scenario of Cynthia going behind the monsters and assassinating them.
"Phew...then"
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED...]
However, he ignored the messages for now and turned to the rest of the scouts they had left to fight the small tigers.
'Huh...none, died?' Though it wasn't a good thing to expect, it was something that was inevitable. However, to his shock, they were holding on well and had killed 7 tigers already and pushing to finish off the rest.
This was the first fight of the new monsters for the members of this scouts except Jenny, Cynthia and Jon, so they had to fight together.
With Mia releasing a red mist to disorient the senses of the tigers, John telling them how the tigers were going to move, Robin and Trudy running around the tigers and accumulating damages, and Simon, Norman and Jude taking up the vanguard, they found synchronization they never thought they had.
Then there were the remaining security personnel shooting their pistols at the zombies that came into the general of the battle.
'So they still work...' Jon had thought, as soon as the world fell modern weapons stopped working, however it turned out they still worked. It was a good thing because it increased the percentage of survival of those who still weren't confident facing the zombies.
Looking at the fight again, the scouts had finished all the tigers and zombies around, so they began searching for their orbs.
'With that done,'
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED LEVEL 22 CLAW TOOTHEED TIGER]
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED LEVEL 23 CLAW TOOTHEED TIGER]
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED LEVEL 21 CLAW TOOTHEED TIGER]
[YOUR LEVEL HAS INCREASED]
[YOUR LEVEL HAS INCREASED]
He called up the messages that he had previously ignored. Among the tigers, he had particularly been involved in three of them, though he directly only killed one.
And out of habit, he decided to check his level,
[STATUS]
[NAME: JON WHYTE
AGE: 19
LEVEL: 21
CLASS: NONE
TITLE: NONE
STRENGTH: 68 AGILITY: 99 STAMINA: 87 MANA: 550 HEALTH: 160
SKILLS: INSTANT CALCULATION (FIRST REALM) LEVEL 5, MOON (FIRST REALM) LEVEL 3, MOON GAZING (SECOND REALM), SPEED-HEALING (UNRANKED REALM) LEVEL 1, MIND WORLD
PASSIVE SKILLS: COMPOSURE (THIRD REALM) LEVEL 5, SOLDIER'S PHYSIQUE (UNRANKED)
STATUS POINT: 14]
Jon couldn't help but think how difficult leveling up had become. Despite his contribution to the bears and tigers defeat, his level hadn't increased by so much.
From this fight, he was now painfully aware of how useless his skills were. Jenny and Cynthia's skills were attack based while his was more of a support type, even his moon energy he used to coat the weapons were no longer useful again. They worked really well against those monsters below level 20, and even as he fought, his hands were hurting from the recoil from using the weapon which was meant for level 15 and below for above level 20.
His situation was almost bad, and if not for his physical stats and his soldier's physique, he didn't think he could keep up with Jenny or Cynthia. Now, the question was, would he give up because of that, well the answer was obvious.
If he wanted to protect Alexa, and meet his childhood friend again or stand before his parents and demand an explanation, he had to continue striving forward. And that meant doing whatever it took.
And from this fight, immediately his level increased he began to feel something, it was as if he had reached a wall of some sort. And from his knowledge from novels and cartoons he knew, "It seems there is a threshold of some sort. It should be around level 25 if I'm not mistaking."
Meanwhile, Jenny, who had landed the decisive blow and played the biggest role in the two battles they just had already reached that threshold.
As she reading the messages, it said,
[YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 25 (UNRANKED REALM). THERE ARE REQUIREMENTS MUST BE MET TO ADVANCE TO THE NEXT REALM.]
[THESE ARE POSSIBLE CLASSES TO HELP CONTINUE YOUR PATH:
1.SUMMONER
2.MAGE
3.CREATION MASTER
4.SWORDSMASTER]
Jenny's eyes widened at the options, and she rushed to Jon's side. "Hey, Jon! I got something about classes. Have you seen anything like this?"
Jon then realized, she had reached the same threshold he'd just been thinking about. "No, I haven't, but I had a feeling something like this would happen. Congrats," he said, genuinely happy for her.
"Thanks," Jenny smiled. "What do you think I should choose?"
"Tell me what it showed you," Jon replied. Then Jenny described the available classes that was displayed for her, and as she spoke,
Cynthia quietly approached, listening intently.
The truth was, Cynthia too had reached level 25, but she wanted to understand the process better before making any decisions, and luckily for her it was already a conversation.
Jon then explained, "The system is probably offering you classes based on how you've been fighting so far. The 'Summoner' class likely stems from when you created that cat, it was probably a form of summoning. 'Mage' is linked to the times you manipulated fire, chains, spears and so on. 'Creation Master' must be related to when you built that tank. And 'Swords-master', well, you did get that sword from the orbs. So maybe the system's nudging you towards using it more."
He glanced at Cynthia. "I bet your choices will include something like 'Assassin' based on your stealthy approach."
Cynthia's eyes then narrowed, Jon was spot on. Then she silently crossed the class off her list, now realizing the system was shaped by their behavior and attitudes, she would try and change her approach in fighting.
Then, Jon continued, "Creation Master might be rare compared to the others. The rest, seem like more common paths others might choose."
Then, after a moment of contemplation, Jenny made her choice. However, it was already obvious at which class she was going to choose among the options.
She stepped away from the group, just in case something significant happened, and whispered her selection to the system.
[YOU HAVE SELECTED THE CREATION MASTER CLASS. SOME PEOPLE SAY CREATION IS ONLY TO BRING THINGS TO LIFE, BUT LITTLE DO THEY KNOW THAT DESTRUCTION IS ALSO CREATION IN ITS HIGHEST FORM AND ALSO BEGETS CREATION. THIS IS THE VISION OF A CREATOR.]
[TO OBTAIN THIS CLASS, YOU MUST FULFILL THE FOLLOWING REQUIREMENTS:
FIGHT, KILL, AND ABSORB FIRST REALM CREATURES REMAINS: 0/5
FIGHT, KILL, AND ABSORB UNRANKED REALM CREATURES REMAINS: 0/25
EVOLVE YOUR MAIN SKILL TO THE SECOND REALM]
Jenny though shocked at the requirements, she then smiled. Though the system was giving her something that could take a long time to achieve, a sense of purpose began settling in her as the path ahead became clearer.