Chapter 22: Collecting

Once Lilith came too, she propped herself up with a slight blush across her face,

"Thank you...Velt, if it wasn't for you I would of most likely died back there..." She said with a few tears streaming down her cheeks.

Velt walked over to her and used his finger to gently wipe away the tears that were pouring down her face.

"You can't cry like this, it'll ruin your beautiful face, Lilith." He said with a warm and gentle smile,

"Of course I would protect you, you're my teammate after all. Are you feeling okay now?"

Lilith looked towards his gentle smile once more and truly felt lucky to have met such a companion at this moment that would be with her through thick and thin.

"Yeah, I feel slightly lightheaded and a little numb around my arms but I can feel it getting better gradually, if anything, they also feel like they're strengthening somewhat." Lilith said in reply.

Oh? now that I look at myself, I think my stats must have gone up a bit too... I wonder if a quest would have triggered from that and if the system will show what that strange ability I used was..

System, Stats.

[Statistics]

Strength: 40 +4 ↑

Agility: 42 +3 ↑

Fortitude: 38 ↑

Intelligence: 50 ↑

Reflex: 43 ↑

Luck: 18 ↑

Charm: 15 ↑

Spirit: 52 ↑

Equipment:

Basic Spear [Strength +4 Agility +3]

Titles:

- Determined [Spirit +6 | Intelligence + 6]

- Focused [Intelligence +8 | Luck +2 | Charm +2 | Spirit +12]

- Strong Will [+4 Spirit | +4 Luck | +4 Reflex]

- The Absolute [+6 All Stats]

D-damn... I expected a slight increase when I saw the newfound muscles spreading across my body but I never thought the increase would be that drastic... by the looks of it, my Focused and Strong Will Titles have both leveled up and I've also obtained a new Title called The Absolute.

System, can you show me what The Absolute mastery condition is?

[Of course, Host]

[The Absolute: (Current Mastery: Lvl 1 0/1000 EXP)

Mastery Lvl 2 Grants:

+12 To all Stats

Bonus Tree Unlock - Emperors Physique (+6 Strength | +6 Reflex | +4 Agility | +12 Fortitude)

Description: Only by achieving Absolute power can one truly be free.]

[Mastery of the Title: Absolute can be gained by carving a name for yourself into the world, the more people that know about you and your supreme strength, the higher limits you can reach.]]

Wow... surely that's a little OP?

[Well, Host.. it may seem Over-powered for the current you, however, once you get into the hundreds of points is when you would truly see it's real use. The current you is too weak to even think about contending with the monsters of this world after all.]

Hmmm, that's true. I'll have to get a lot stronger if I want to survive I guess.

After Velt and Lilith had cleared up and felt a bit better, they decided to proceed onwards further into the Mines, because they were around the strewn bodies, they checked for some loot amongst the bloodied bodies and found some scales as well as a rather particularly big scale which was from the Giant Kobold... oh right, if you're wondering what the stats of that Kobold was, it's like so..

[Giant Kobold - Rank F]

[Statistics]

Strength: 40

Agility: 34

Fortitude: 35

Intelligence: 26

Reflex: 28

Luck: 0

Charm: 0

Spirit: 32

It had no equipment on it or anything either, luckily for me. We stored the Kobolds Scales and then proceeded to go even further into the Mines.

After around 15 minutes or so of walking through the dark dreary dungeon-like mine, they came across a peculiar looking piece of stone, it had a silvery hue to it and shined a little in contrast of the darkness making it slightly noticeable.

"Velt, could this be one of the Ores we're looking for?" Lilith says

"Ah, yeah, it should be, it has a very similar appearance to what we were told after all."

Velt grabbed the Pickaxe that was given to them and began to swing it towards the edge of the ore as instructed by the Blacksmith previously. After arduously hitting away at it for around 5 minutes, he managed to safely secure a somewhat rough chunk of ore.

They repeated this process for around an hour or so as there was quite a lot of ore left dotted around on the walls and made their way back out of the mines to head back to town.

Surprisingly they didn't meet with any Kobolds aside from the first group of them, I think it may have been because of the strong stench of Kobold blood on us already that made them lose their aggro and be particularly careful to avoid us on our trip but who knows.

We left the Mines and made our way back around on the safer route so as to avoid anything too above our current levels.

Once again we had seen and talked to a few merchants and peddlers passing by but nothing more and we securely made it back to the Empire within around an hour or so this time as we was already use to the route now.

This whole time, Velt had been wondering what exactly that ability was, or rather, what happened to him when he seemingly changed from his enraged state to a much more calm and strong state... he had asked Lilith if she had seen anything with her having been knocked out and she replied of how she saw him with silk white hair and golden shining eyes.

According to Lilith, I looked very imposing at the time and so I wonder if it has anything to do with my new title 'The Absolute'... could it be because the Title changes the way I appear so as to look the part of being Absolute too? I want to find out more about it but when I went to ask the System about it, it replied as so:

[I'm sorry Host, for you're currently too weak and I've determined it's not the right time to know yet.]

Since this was the first time the System had flat out given me a 'No' of sorts, I decided not to pursue it any further as it would only lead me astray.

After talking to the Guards and the Captain for a few minutes who I found out is known as Guard Captain Ries, we decided to make our way back to the Blacksmiths first and give them the ores.