Chapter 40: Chop
As he walked away from the camp in the dead of the night he was going over his future path of developnt. He couldnt just focus on training with the new guidance system all day due to the third class skill requiring large amounts of ti battling in the forest.
On the way from the camp he tried using [Axe Mastery] in an actual battle with a barghest. He was disappointed to see that the trajectories wouldnt actually assist him in battle, and completely shut off right before the battle started. It seed it was purely a training chanism.
Finally he arrived at a small clearing so distance from the camp. He didnt want to accidentally ruin his ho in case the skill had any unexpected effects.
He started with using a small amount of energy and channeled it through his new fractal as he swung the axe. The energy transford as it ventured out through his hand and into the axe. As he swung down he could see a translucent edge ford by cosmic energy.
It was like the axe head had gotten a bit larger, as the translucent edge ran a few centiters in front of the actual edge, and its length was roughly 10 centiters longer compared to the actual steel edge. The edge created from cosmic energy looked like a copy of his axes actual edge, with so faint fractals added along its length.
It wasnt spectacular but he used a minuscule amount of energy in the strike. He tried using the skill once more, but this ti he put far more cosmic energy into the skill. The translucent blade grew quite a bit larger, now stretching noticeably outward. The blade was now over one ter long, making his once short-ranged axe have almost as long a range as the great sword he had commandeered. Luckily the edge didnt grow downward along the haft, but rather outward. Otherwise it would be hard for him to swing it without maiming himself.
It was out of Zacs expectation it would grow to this size. As he continued putting in more power into the skill it kept growing, but Zac soon felt that he was starting to lose control over the skill. Suddenly the cosmic energy blade simply dissipated, leaving no trace of ever being there.
It seed that there was a limit of how large he could grow the blade without it starting to beco unstable. After so experintation he knew that he could keep the blade stable at roughly one ter. Any larger and it would quickly beco unstable. The longer he made the blade the shorter duration he could keep it.
It seed that this was all that there was to the skill. He tried shooting it away like a ranged attack or boorang, but nothing happened. It was firmly lodged to his axe. Of course, the proficiency was only at early stage, and it might get more functions at higher levels.
Zac was still quite pleased with the skill, even though it wasnt as flashy as the black lightning of the demon leader. It wasnt fancy but he could imdiately imagine a few uses for a skill such as this. For one he could surprise an enemy. He or she might have thought that they dodged his strike, but instead they were well within the range of his skill blade.
It was also a brutal instrunt when fighting against multiple enemies. If he pushed it past its point of stability he could wield a huge blade and slash at multiple people at one, at least for a short duration before the skill broke. With his monstrous strength he believed that he could create a great deal of carnage in that brief window in ti.
Of course, that would be a last resort attack, as cramming that amount of cosmic energy into one skill use would greatly drain him.
There was one thing he didnt understand with the skill. He had gained his Dao seed from managing to incorporate this intangible force of heaviness into his strikes while he was walking back to the camp, but he was utterly incapable of doing the sa with the skill.
He tried using a few Dao empowered strikes, and they did have an air of weight to them. It wasnt as tyrannical as the axe-mans of course, but it felt like these strikes should be harder for soone to block compared to normal strike.
But when he tried incorporating this feeling into [Chop], everything got jumbled and he didnt even manage to produce the blade. He saw no reason that they shouldnt work together but guessed that he had to practice so more before being able to use it as he wished.
The last thing for him to test out with the new skill was the sharpness. It was sowhat pointless if he got a larger edge if it wasnt sharp. Sure, with his strength hed do damage anyways without a sharp edge, but if the translucent edge was dull he might as well swing around a tree trunk.
He charged up a ter long blade and swung down upon a rock almost as tall as him. With a clang the cosmic energy blade cut halfway into the stone. Satisfied, Zac let the blade dissipate.
It seed that cutting through things would use up the energy faster compared to simply having it summoned, but even while not cutting things it continuously drained him slowly. Of course he could likely keep inputting more and more energy and the blade would remain. But it seed to be a wasteful use of cosmic energy.
Zac felt that the skill was best used as either a finisher or surprise attack, not in a long protracted battle. He would only be able to use it continuously for a few minutes at the most before being completely drained.
The sharpness seed to be roughly the sa as with his actual axe. It did seem to model itself after his axes edge after all, so it made sense that they would share so features. He wondered if the sharpness improved if he got a higher grade weapon in the future. He was sure that his weapon was a low F-grade blade, as he had looted it on so random demon after all. It couldnt be too valuable.
He then brought out a sword from his pouch to test whether he could use [Chop] with other weapons, but it at least didn't work with swords.
He was planning on testing so more but a snap of a twig in the vicinity stopped him in his tracks.
Zac got a sinking feeling, as he had made sure that there were no beasts in the area before trying out the skill. He quickly slunk down into nearby foliage and started to retreat toward his camp, taking great care to not make a sound.
Only the gwyllgi among the demons seed to be active during the night, but he had never heard those beasts make any sounds while moving through the forest. That ant that the snap of the twig was more likely to be one of the war parties moving about.
He swore at himself for his carelessness. He had been on a high from his new boosts and wasnt as careful as he should be. Even when grinding beasts his biggest priority had always been keeping a lookout for these parties. He always kept moving and didnt fight close to his base as he didnt want to attract attention to that area.
Now he was quite close to his camp, and his swing into the stone had made a sound. He soundlessly passed through the layer and entered his illusion array. He could only hope it was a large critter that was lumbering around in the dark.
Zac held his axe at the ready, vigilantly gazing into the woods. His hopes were soon dashed as he saw one of the roving war parties moving close by. The demons conversed in their language with subdued voices, seemingly arguing about sothing.
The core of the party consisted of 6 demons and an imp. They generally seed to be average soldiers, with none of them wearing expensive-looking gear. There also were a few gwyllgi and barghest surrounding the party.
Zac didnt dare to move even though he knew that his camp just looked like an empty area with so extra dense bushes. His illusion array was effective on the eyes, but he had no idea whether there were skills that could sense the array. He had tried it with his [Eye of Discernnt] without finding anything, but it was also the cheapest skill that the Nexus Node offered.
Suddenly he saw a gwyllgi was slowly coming extrely close, moving so ways from the group. If it kept moving the direction it did, it would enter the bushes he had moved to the edge of his camp, and soon after enter his array.
Zacs fears ca true as it trotted forward and entered his camp through the dense bushes. Zac was ready and with lightning speed he grabbed the hounds neck as soon as it was through the array, and with a twist broke it. With his strength he could probably rip its head right off, but he didnt want any blood to spill.
He slowly dragged the corpse into the camp and flung it to the side. Luckily the array also had sound dampening, so no one should have heard anything. He resud his vigil against the rest of the group, and it seed no one among them had noticed the missing beast. The gwyllgi often moved so distance from the parties acting as scouts, so it would likely take so while before they noticed their missing beast. Unfortunately, they had stopped just 50 ters away from the camp.
They still seed to be arguing about sothing in hushed tones. One of the demons seed nervous and kept pointing toward where Zac had tested his skill. The others seed unconvinced and dismissive.
One of the demons rolled his eyes at the nervous one and started to actually walk toward Zacs camp. The nervous demon entreated him, but was just t with a dismissive wave of his hand. He started fiddling with his pants and stopped at a tree just half a ter away from the edge of the illusion array.
The demon was actually relieving himself. He looked around the area while he did so. His eyes stopped a second on the camp. It should look like a normal clearing to him, but the demon slightly furrowed his brows. Soon they smoothed out and he casually looked away again and continued with his business.
But Zacs heart started beating rapidly after scrutinizing the demons face.
Heknew.
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