The chop quest seemed to take time rather than being hard , but if he changed his daily work-out routine to chop wood it would be done sooner or later . Chopping wood was a great work-out anyways .
The last quest seemed either extremely easy or rather hard . Just 30 fights and it would be done . The whole island was a large forest so finishing it seemed to be the easiest of the three . It depended on what be one with nature meant . If it was just some random words , great .
If he actually had to somehow merge with nature , or become a tree-hugger it felt far more annoying .
Finally it seemed that he found out everything that he could for now . He had entered the outpost shop as well , but it seemed nothing new was added from gaining a class .
There were a few new skills added at the Node , but they were prohibitively expensive , with the cheapest being 500 000 Nexus Coins .
All in all it had been a fruitful day . He was disappointed that the demon had self-destructed rather than answering questions . There were so many things he needed to know . To be fair , Zac would likely have killed him after questioning the demon in any case . That the demon chose making a last ditch effort to bring Zac with him to hell was a logical choice .
Luckily the gear he gained and the strengthening made the sting less severe . He still looked positively insane from the blood and broken gear , and didn’t want to put on the gear while looking like this . He left the camp to patrol the vicinity for a while , and then went back .
This would likely be a new addition to the daily routine . The humanoid demons seemed far more organized compared to the dumb beasts that hade came through the incursion first .
Satisfied that there were no enemies nearby , he moved water from the water array into the tanker’s reservoir . Finally he ripped the patchwork armor off , and took the first good shower in over a week . It was a risky move , but the grime and blood was making even him crazy , and he needed to get it off . He brought his new axe with him into the bathroom in case he was ambushed while in there .
It took half an hour to scrub the layers of dirt and blood of himself before stepping out of the shower .
Even cleaned up he could barely recognize himself in the mirror . His whole body had undergone a metamorphosis during the last month . Almost all of the fat was gone , leaving only a thin layer covering his muscular frame .
His physique looked hard . His muscles were compact and wiry rather than big and swollen like a body builder’s . He thought he actually might be smaller now compared to when he worked out at the gym .
Of course he knew that an explosive power was contained in these muscles , and that they were so dense that maybe not even a bullet would penetrate them by now . All over his body were scars of varying size and severity . His tactic of boosting his vitality and taking blows for landing killing strikes had been effective , but it had left an undeniable mark .
He looked down on his rough and calloused hands . It was hard to believe what these hands had done the last weeks . Once he had actually ripped the jaws of a Gwyllgi straight apart when he had dropped his hatchet .
Zac sighed and put on one of his last whole t-shirts and undergarments . He didn’t want to use his rags together with his new gear .
Unfortunately the chest pieces of both the males’ leather armors had been blasted to shreds so he could only put on the female’s armor . He didn’t worry about it too much though , as he had a strong suspicion that there would be many more demons in the woods that could supply new gear .
To get adjusted to his new weapon he dragged over a thick log . He reactivated his gravity array , and started cutting the log into firewood , working out and working on his quest simultaneously . It was already late , and he would not go out hunting anymore today . As he was methodically swinging his axe a trace of anticipation could be seen on his face .
For the first time since the world changed , he looked forward to go out and test his might .
Chapter 26 - Demons
Zac woke up early the next day . He had slept outside with axe in hand and geared up , just in case of a nightly raid . He once again set out to scout the vicinity , but nothing seemed to have moved through there during the night .
Zac wasted no time , and set out towards the direction of his fight against the herald . He wanted to scout out the situation before proceeding toward the next Herald .
He still wanted to complete the quests as quickly as possible , but the new enemies had proved that something had changed on the island . Zac wanted to scout the situation out until he knew what that change meant , and decided to start from where he had fought Vul .
After walking for a while he ran into a barghest . A creepy smile appeared on Zac’s face , and he brandished the axe .
The beast was aggressive as ever at least , as it mindlessly charged at him . Zac sidestepped to let it run into a tree behind him just to gauge its power .
He was surprised to see that it didn’t actually just charge in to the tree as before , it instead bit into it and ripped a good chunk out of the wood out almost impossibly fast . Of course , it still couldn’t stop its momentum , and still hit the tree square with its now closed maw .
Zac wasted no time and with a swing completely decapitated the demon . He felt almost no resistance when cutting through the spine of the demonling , and the axe continued down with such ease that he almost cut into his own leg before he could stop the descent . He knew the axe was extraordinarily sharp since yesterday , but he was still shocked how easy it went through . .
As he continued on he wouldn’t avoid any beasts anymore , rather he’d go out of his way to kill them if he found them . He looked forward to getting the Axe Mastery skill , and wouldn’t miss an opportunity to work on his 1000 kill goal .
He had been annoyed when he had noticed that only the Axe Mastery quest progressed from kills , not the Forester’s Constitution quest . He would have to figure out what was missing later . He also confirmed that the Chop quest did not progress from battling , even though it mentioned chopping bodies .
As he was advancing he noticed that the beasts had indeed improved . They were stronger , faster , and more impressively they seemed smarter . It was as if a limiter had reduced all stats , including intelligence . Then it had been lifting gradually during the last week of the month , and as the last day passed the limit had been ripped off completely .
Overall he gauged that the beasts’ stats had improved by roughly 50% since four days ago . The danger improved more than that though , as they had started doing feints and use tactics while attacking compared to before . The barghest were of course still dum-dums , but not to the point that they’d mindlessly charge into a wall anymore .
The rewards for killing the beasts hadn’t been improved with their improved performance . It seemed that Zac truly had gotten a bargain when hunting during the first month . Zac snickered as he imagined the cultivators in the beginner villages hunting rabbits and boars around the edge of the village for a mere 2-3 Nexus Coins a piece , like in some RPG .
The increase in strength didn’t bother him when it came to the fodder demons that was peppered through the island . They had improved , but so had he . Even the empowered demons were defenseless against his new weapon . It felt like proper gear actually had a greater effect compared to attaining a class .
Of course , the effect of a class would show over time rather than immediately it seemed . Also the immediate effect on him was not too large , as he already had such high stats from his titles . If someone with only the basic stats got this class with accompanying titles , it’d likely been a pretty large boost to him .