Chapter 3: 3
I finally stopped as I reached the end of the alleyway again for the fortieth time today making another mark on the bloody wall as the sunset. 21 marks. Three weeks, that was how long I had been training in this long ass alleyway. Three long weeks isolated from people alone with my thoughts and grinding. Taking a few deep breaths to calm myself doing a post exercise ritual of stretches even as they are not needed, letting the wind that occasionally flowed caress my naked body. I had inventoried my clothes and glasses after I started noticing my shoes becoming a bit worn out from the constant running, wanting to preserve my clothes for when I have to be in public with people, and that my glasses didn't actually do anything for me anymore. Plus running barefoot let me train my pain tolerance against the concrete ground. I take a look at the gains I made over the past 3 weeks of nigh constant training.
"Notifications summary" I said reading the screen that popped up summarizing the gains I had made since I started my training.
Notifications Summary
Levels Gained: 5
Stat Gains:
+25 Strength
+33 Constitution
+64 Dexterity
+76 Intelligence
+2 Wisdom
+1 Luck
Gained Skills:
Sprint Level 63
Berserk Level 1
Unarmed Combat Mastery Level 23
Pain Tolerance Level 21
Parkour Level 9
Physical Resistance Level 21
Jump Level 48
Light Foot Level 36
Acrobatics Level 43
Observe Level 6
Power Strike Level 1
Meditate Level 11
Rip Level 18
Craft Level 8
Willpower Level 16
Perks Gained
Deep Well - Gain double the increase to MP from each Intelligence point.
Cat's Grace - Always land on your feet, keep your balance easily, and reduce fall damage.
Suffice to say I had made quite a lot of progress towards both my skills and stats. The never ending running, jumping, flips, and sadomasochism against the closest wall rapidly leveled up my related skills and stats till they started slowing down past level 15. Then it was just a matter of quantity and perseverance to just keep pushing despite the boredom and common sense in my head telling me how stupid I was to hurt myself like this. That last part was what gave me the Willpower skill which let me focus on a task and not lose the Will to continue a action, perfect for long term isolated grinding. I did take the occasional break to try some new things like meditation which restored my mana, but honestly my Sprint skill's increasing mana efficiency combined with my rapidly increasing intelligence, from just doing successively massive amounts of ridiculously large brute force calculations which gave me more mana, made it inefficient time wise to grind.
I did get to practice some crafting and observation once my combat skills and strength started getting hard enough to break pieces off of the walls which I used to craft crude stone tools. I was not strong enough to rip the lids off the dumpsters yet to make some metal tools, but I was getting there. In fact I gained two new perks from reach the 50 threshold for my intelligence and dexterity stats. Other than that I few lucky moments where I managed to avoid going over the alleyway entrance ledge gave me a luck point and I apparently had a daily quest that gave me 500 experience points for doing enough exercise routines every morning. It was great as the increase in levels increased both my health and mana and restored them instantly when I leveled up, allowing me to increase my grinding efficiency. However, the list of skills should have been higher, I tried out various special moves like the Rokushiki from One Piece only to either get not notifications or a notification stating that my stats were not high enough to acquire certain skills. I even tried to use mana to create the classic mana bolt spell, but failed as I simply could not feel the mana that was suppose to be inside me according to my MP bar. I tried to feel the energy that was supposedly speeding me up during the Sprint skill, but I could not feel anything. The MC's of so many comics and fanfics lied to me, it was not easy at all!
I also tried to create a ID create and of course failed as I could not gather any energy in my hands and because I remembered something very important about Instant Dungeons. I remembered that the MC's green hair'd martial arts friend explaining about how to get in and out of ID spaces. One of the things he said was that Gaia would help them make the spaces. So even if I could gather energy in my hand to release it, would it even make a ID space since I was not on Earth and Gaia might not be real here or would I end up calling a warp entity instead? It never did make sense to me why creating a entire physical illusionary reality would cost no MP to make or any detailed knowledge or training. Just up goes your hand and there you go.
While meditating I debated whether or not to try to gain psyker powers since as a Gamer I should be safe from corruption since I had the Gamer's Mind skill. In the end however, I was just too afraid to walk down that path, I mean look at the strongest psykers in the galaxy like the Emperor and Magnus and all those weaker than them? One is crippled, another is a demon, and the others are either basically on Execution watch by Imperials or at constant risk of being possessed by demons who want to eat your soul. Hell no to that life even if it does seem to grant immense power if the wiki descriptions of beta and alpha level psykers are true. If I had a chance it would probably better for me to become a Blank somehow, or stick strictly to mana only powers as those are not warp based. That little session of thinking actually got me the two Wisdom stat points so I guess I was on the right track?
"Character Sheet" I said as my sheet appeared in front of me. showing me the fruits of my labor.
Character Sheet
NAME: [UNDECIDED]
OCCUPATION: THE GAMER
RACE: HUMAN
LEVEL: 6
NEXT LEVEL: 67.18%
HP: 680
HP REGEN: 9.52 HP PER MINUTE
MP: 1970
MP REGEN: 19.7 MP PER MINUTE
STRENGTH: 35
CONSTITUTION: 43
DEXTERITY: 74
INTELLIGENCE: 86
WISDOM: 12
LUCK: 11
STAT POINTS: 25
MONEY: 0
I felt a lot better now with almost 7 times more life than I started with and presumably my dexterity and Sprint combined with Acrobatic should let me dodge most things that weren't las guns...which just happened to be the most common weapon in the Imperium. Sigh. At least I could confidently say I could leave this alleyway at anytime now. My Jump skill passively increased my max jump height by 10% per level with a active boost of 100% per level so now my jump height passively was boosted by 480% while active would bring it to 4,800% which equated to 2.9 ft and 25 ft respectively which was amazing considering I could only jump at most 6 inches before from just standing. I could now reach the top of some of the smaller buildings now and pull myself over, I took a quick look before and all I saw were more of the same houses and alleyways, but no people. I was seriously confused as why was there the equivalent of an entire city's worth of infrastructure left unused yet still be clean with no sign of staff? If it was not for the fact that the end of the alleyway showed a thriving city with ships flying about, I would have thought I was on some xenos or dead world. Which did bring the question to mind of WHY was there no aircraft space or otherwise above this false city?
I lightly hopped on my feet seemingly floating on air as I silently moved from side to side rapidly as a nervous tick that I developed while training even while resting.
Breath in, Breath out. In. Out.
Feel the wind. Be calm.
Feel-wait, somethings wrong. The wind is different today. I was intimately familiar with the smell, strength, and frequency of the wind that flowed down this alleyway, what with being awake 24/7 and being able to remember a lot more due to having higher intelligence stats. The wind carried a stronger smell of something like gasoline, likely promethium, and was choppy like something was interfering with it. Was something flying in the alleyway?
Thinking of people actually being here made me pale as I had left obvious signs of my presence what with the numerous cracked walls and blood all over them up and down the alleyway. No doubt they were going to investigate this area and call for more people.
I had to run! No! Wait, I had to spy on them, maybe I could learn something from them. No! No that is dumb, if they can get here that means they have a flier that means they could just run me down if they chased me. The other path would be to kill them to prevent that, but that would only be required if they discovered me. I was not willing to kill another human being just to satisfy my curiosity, I was not some kind of monster or beast dammit!
Clutching my shaking fists I sighed and quickly put back on my clothes and proceeded to finally leave, before a thought came to me, how was I going to leave this city? From what I recall the sides of the city were a straight drop like a cliff, and I could not be sure the other end of this city of alleyways would be different. Gah! What should I do?
DING!
QUEST CREATED!
ESCAPE THE GLORY OF ALKAZERE!
A UNKNOWN HAS INTRUDED INTO YOUR TRAINING ALLEYWAY FOR UNKNOWN REASONS. DECIDE THEIR FATE!
GOAL: LEAVE OR DEAL WITH THE UNKNOWN
REWARD: LEAVE THE GLORY OF ALKAZERE, GAIN ACCESS TO THE WIDER WORLD, 1000 EXP, HIDDEN REWARD
PENALTY: STILL IN THE CITY, DISCOVERED BY LOCALS, BE A CRIMINAL, DEATH
ACCEPT OR DENY
Well, guess that answers my question. What the hell was a Alkazere though?
I click the Accept button and prepared myself. Breath in and out. I was ready. First I needed the high ground. I activated the Jump skill and using a nearby dumpster leaped onto the top of the closest second story building and then leaping on top of the next door third story building. Another thing I noticed as I ascended was that none of the buildings here had windows, only metal doors. Were they in fact storehouses? Using Observe on them never revealed what was inside so I was left in the dark. Ignoring that train of thought I proceeded to Sprint and Jump my way silently across the rooftops towards the edge of the alleyway. The time required reduced massively as I moved in a straight line instead of following all the twists and turns of the alleyway.
In less than an hour I was within sight of the edge of the city and I could hear something. A kind of thrumming sound like that of a propeller spinning at high speeds, but I did not see any fliers. Laying down on top of a roof I looked carefully over the side and waited. I saw what it was in less minute it was a large propeller powered hovercraft with balloon like cushions on the side like one of those Earth water hovercrafts, big enough to carry four people. There were all wearing the same kind of uniform, gaudy bright blue and gold with a lot of tassels and I could see that they were armed with a pistol and a saber. A nobleman's house guard perhaps? The vehicle was large, almost like a tank with a symbol on the front a sword crossing a gear. Mechanicus aligned perhaps?
As the vehicle passed by me I noticed something, the back of the hovercraft was wide, hidden by the fan on the back, and the air cushions made a good place to perch on, I could possibly hang and hide in the back there when they left. I just had to make sure I was not detected by these people as they got back to wherever they were coming from so I could leave the craft at somewhere along the way back. Maybe I could land on a roof of another of the buildings on the city?
Well it was either this, run away, or knock out/kill the guys, which would end up pretty badly for them as I would most likely have to destroy any communication devices they had, but even then I don't know how to pilot that thing. So guess hitchhiking it is then.
DING! STEALTH SKILL GAINED! EAVESDROPPING SKILL GAINED!
Oh, nice. I focus my ears on trying to hear the people on the hovecraft even I followed behind them stealthily. a few buildings behind, making sure to follow them just out of sight using the buildings for cover. Eventually they stopped at the end of the alleyway and get out. I laid flat on my stomach and watched them from afar yet still within hearing range. They were visibly distressed and afraid, though none seemed to say anything, bravado and position jockeying perhaps? They started speaking to each other in a language I could not recognize and examined all the dried blood prints and smashed cracked walls, luckily I did not leave hand prints when I smashed those walls, just blotches of blood.
I could hear increasingly frantic and fearful whispering with the most fanciful among them barking a order at them most likely to shut up and ordered the one who piloted to most likely leave. The vehicle slowly rotated around after the three got back in and I slowly circled around to the back of the hovercraft and silently dropped down behind the noisy vehicle and carefully climbed slowly onto the rotating vehicle careful to not suddenly disturb the vehicle by placing my weight too quickly on one side and pulled myself completely behind the fan section, and proceeded to grip hard. So here I was now grabbing the sides of a hover crafts fan frame, sitting on a cushion, and waiting for the vehicle to finally take off. Which it did with haste as the floor underneath me rushed past my feet which was only a half feet off the ground. I tried not to grunt as the hovercraft made the twists and turns to exit the alleyway and had to contain as fearful gasp as I saw the floor disappear beneath me and the city far below stretching forever.
The hovercraft tilted as it accelerated downward, causing myself to force myself down lest I float upwards and be revealed to anyone looking at the back of the hovercraft compared to having to look closely. Gripping the cushion as best I could with one leg I swung the other so I could maneuver myself so that I could look under the cushion so I could see how high we were as we moved. We were still pretty high up but I could see us heading towards a pair of high towers that were close together and would pass just above them. I practiced a bit and my high dexterity stat and Acrobatics skill would actually let me jump in between walls like those old Megaman games, so I guess this would be a good a place as any to drop off. Plus I could see heavy foot traffic at the bottom of the towers so I should be able to avoid most detection and hide in the crowd upon landing.
I rapidly did some calculations based on the height of those towers and my own abilities and calculated the optimum landing site that should let me avoid the attention of any looking around or looking out the window. Plan formulated I waited for the hovercraft to enter the optimum position, a couple minute passes and I let go, dropping down, leg still hooked to the cushion and rotated. Upside down now before I fully leave the hover craft I give a light kick off the bottom of the air cushion, just enough to give me enough horizontal velocity to make it to the side of the nearest tower.
Seconds passed as the air rushed past my face, Gamer's Mind keeping my terror in check, right as I am about to hit the side of the building I tuck and roll with the building before contorting my leg to allow for me to kick off the side towards the other tower. Soon I was kicking my way down from tower to tower going faster and faster till I was a blur to most people, unnoticed or dismissed as a figment of their imagination.
With one last kick I land in what looked like ANOTHER alleyway except this one much more dirty! I quickly thought and readied my body and it was ready! Just as I was about to hit the ground I kicked off the ground at a angle to deflect the velocity into rotational energy, leaving me spinning rapidly in the air like a top before I twisted again to land on my feet, sweeping my hands and feet around int a circle to absorb and direct the leftover kinetic energy into punches that I sent into the air, causing small air distortions to form for a split second and leaving my whole body sore but clean. Ow. At least it only lasted a bit till Gamer's Body removed the pain.
I stretched my legs and rotated my arms around to make sure everything was fine, which they were due to the skill, but force of habit and all that.
DING!
QUEST COMPLETED!
MAP FUNCTION UNLOCKED!
1000 EXP GAINED!
HIDDEN REWARD ACQUIRED!
GACHA SYSTEM UNLOCKED!
YOU MAY NOW GAIN GACHA TICKETS IN PLACE OF QUEST REWARDS!
HIGHER DIFFICULTY QUESTS WILL OFFER HIGHER TIER GACHA TICKETS!
WARNING! ONCE A GACHA TICKET REWARD HAS BEEN CHOSEN ALL OTHER REWARDS WILL BE LOCKED OUT!
'Sigh, great now I even had a gacha system mechanic too' I thought closing the screen mentally while brushing the dust off my sleeves and tucking at my clothes to make sure they look presentable I proceeded to walk towards the moving crowds at one of the end of the alleyway.
Time to actually begin living in this mad galaxy.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone