Eating the Limit Breaking Mushroom

Dave sat on the training room's floor with crossed legs focusing the limit breaking mushroom with his eyes. He turned it around in his hands and tried to ready himself for what came next. In his head, he reviewed what happened in the last weeks.

Only one week was remaining for him to rank his class up to 2 stars.

The reason why he wasn't faster with his training was simple. Dave decided that he wanted to train the skills, [Newbie Hero's Radar], and [Bubble Control] to SSS grade as well.

That left him with only half the time to train his stats to SSS grade.

Nevertheless, he managed to pull with this monstrous training regime through and was now stronger than ever.

Only those, who ate a limit breaking mushroom, might be stronger than him in the same ranking.

To his own displeasure even though [Newbie Hero's Radar] was now of SSS grade he couldn't find any SSS grade quests in the city. Like this, his chance of gaining 5 more of these mushrooms disappeared into the wind.

After talking with Ayano about which stat he should use it for, she told him that the most important thing for every ability user was the quality of his or her mana. For that reason, they decided that it was best to use it for [Wisdom].

"Dave are you ready?" asked Ayano standing a few meters away from him.

Dave nodded in her direction, exhaled once loudly, and put the mushroom in his mouth.

"Chew. Chew."

Dave's face was itching, he never before in his entire life ate something as disgusting as this thing. Nevertheless, using all his power he managed to gulp it down.

"PING."

[You ate a limit breaking mushroom. Your ability [Newbie Hero's Radar] will be upgraded to the ULTIMATE Rank.]

Dave opened his eyes. "What the hell was that just now?"

He opened the skill description of Newbie Hero's Radar.

[Newbie Hero's Radar] [ULTIMATE]

[Locates people near you, who need your help and grants you corresponding quests. Open your map to activate the ability.

Current Radius: 10km

Quest difficulty depending on skill level.

ULTIMATE:

Through the consumption of a limit breaking mushroom you unlocked the limit breaking quests.

Limit Breaking Quests: (costs: 10.000 Heroism)

Limit Breaking Quests allow your stats to rise beyond the SSS grade. Each stat has its own quest to solve.]

Dave sat at the floor staring at empty air.

Ayano couldn't help asking him, "Dave is everything alright?" She had noticed that the quality of his mana didn't improve and thought something might have gone wrong.

Dave got a hold of himself and answered, "No everything is alright. It is just that something unexpected happened."

Dave explained to Ayano, what exactly happened after he ate the mushroom. She was just as perplexed as he was.

Even if he didn't have a way to produce more of these mushrooms he at least had now a way to break past the SSS rating with all his stats.

"Okay, the cost of the Limit Breaking Quest is 10.000 Heroism. Since I quested like a berserker in the last weeks, I have 82.000 Heroism on me right now. I think now is as good as any other time to try it...", said Dave.

"Okay, Dave but please be cautious. You don't know yet what will happen if you start the quest," responded Ayano trying to warn him of the hidden dangers.

Dave opened his map and looked out for the quest symbols. He saw many quests of low rating but those were not what he was looking for. Then he found a new symbol. The letter 'U' was written at his position on the map. He clicked on it and another window opened up.

[Limit Breaking Quests:

Which Limit do you want to break?

[Strength]

[Agility]

[Stamina]

[Wisdom]

[Intelligence]

[Charisma]

costs: 10.000 Heroism]

Dave thought about, which limit to choose.

'My biggest strength was always my agility. Improving my agility was always much easier so I will start with it.'

He pushed the [Agility] button and the world around him changed.

Telling the truth it wasn't the world around the real Dave that changed but the world around his Energy Body. (As a short reminder for those, who forgot. The Energy body is like his Avatar in his mind space. Every time a window pops up in front of him it is in truth happening inside his head in front of this Energybody...)

[Limit Breaking Quest: Lightning Rabbit] [Difficulty: Ultimate]

[Fight the Lightning Rabbit. The Lightning Rabbit is a monster that breaks naturally through to the Ultimate Rating with its Agility stat.

Prove your power by being faster than it at least once.

Quest clear condition:

Land a physical hit on the Lightning Rabbit once.

Success:

Agility SSS -> ULTIMATE

Failure:

You lost your only chance to break through to the Ultimate rank with your agility stat.

]

The world around Dave turned into a flat green grass plain.

A rabbit materialized in front of Dave. It had pitch black fur with long yellow lightning-like streaks at its sides. Its yellow eyes glowed and focused Dave.

Dave still engrossed in the appearance of this little rabbit noticed too late that it made itself ready to attack.

It flashed once and Dave got hit at his shoulder. He couldn't even trace the movement of the rabbit before it hit him. He was flung away and landed 5 meters away in the grass, his shoulder felt as if it was paralyzed. He swung his arm trying to rejuvenate it.

'Shit I can't lose. I have only a single try for this.' Dave, who didn't expect such a beautiful little creature to be so strong, panicked a little.

Breathing deep in and out he steadied his breathing and slowly the numb sensation in his shoulder disappeared.

'Where is the rabbit?', thought Dave.

"Ptch." The rabbit had attacked Dave again. This time it jumped full force in his back making him hit the floor hard.

"You damn little pest. I will not only hit you, but I will also eat you alive!", shouted Dave angrily.

He created as fast as possible a bubble shield around himself. The best way to counter high agility is with high defense and damage reflection. This much Dave still knew from his time as a pro gamer. Unfortunately for him in this situation, it was useless. If he created something like a spiked bubble shield then the rabbit would simply stop attacking him. Meanwhile, he would lose lots of mana.

But that wasn't the only reason, why he didn't want to do it.

He wanted to prove his speed. If he used another way to solve the quest he would always feel as if he cheated and didn't deserve it.

'How can I be faster than it?' Dave followed the rabbit with his eyes circling around him.

'The only ability I have that boosts my speed is [Strong Movement].' Its rank was still an [E].

Dave only used little effort to train the abilities he got through the [Apprentice Hero's Skin].

The first reason was that they consumed his Heroism and he didn't know if he had any chance on the mainland to fill them up and the second was that his training schedule was already quite full. His [Bubble Control] was a much more reliable ability and he was still restricted in his usage of the Hero Skin since the agency was on the lookout for his hero appearance. Nevertheless, the 25% increase in max. speed was what he needed right now.

"Apprentice Hero's Skin" The Mana around his body started flickering like flames eating away at his flesh. Starting from his boots his appearance changed. He wasn't looking like his own plain self anymore. Now he looked like a hero.

'Okay, now I still need to solve a problem. [Strong Movements] accelerates me in a straight line for 2,5 seconds. If I can't change directions then there is no way I will be able to hit the rabbit.'

Dave was still focused on the rabbit that zigzagged around him in a circle.

The movements reminded him of something.

He was back in his last pro game and remembered how he did the exact same thing as this rabbit. The only difference was that he used his bouncy bubble in the game to achieve those movements.

'That's it,' thought Dave. He never tried it before but in theory, he should be able to manipulate a bubble to work the same way the bouncy bubble of his ALC champ did.

He materialized a few bubbles around himself and tried to recreate the feeling he imagined.

'Okay, that's it! Training [Bubble Control] to the SSS rank was after all the right decision.' His high skill level allowed him to recreate the bouncy bubbles effect in a matter of seconds.

"Hahaha." Dave laughed triumphantly. "Now it is my turn."

Dave dissolved his shield.

The rabbit stopped running and turned in Dave's direction making itself ready to jump at him at any second.