Book 1: Chapter 73

Aqua The next couple days pass by rather smoothly with me going out to hunt at the mountains for most of it. All the way until I finally reach my target level. Level fifty. And as soon as I do, I stop hunting and begin heading back towards the Hunter’s City. Ready to turn it in for the night. I’ll be heading to another ocean tomorrow evening, so being at a hundred percent would be best for that. Today and yesterday’s jobs were all really simple ones too. All of which being either vocal training, more film shoots for the drama, or just photoshoots for magazines. And tomorrow morning’s jobs are the same as well. I yawn as I find my way out of the mountain and begin swimming towards the Hunter’s City. But after I get a distance away from the mountain, I go ahead and open my status to look at my new skill again. The one I got for reaching level fifty. [REQUESTING STATUS: USER AQUA AZURANTH] [STATUS RETRIEVED] [Name: Aqua Azuranth] [Level: 50] [Mana: 129/500] [Strength: 81(54)] [Dexterity: 34] [Constitution: 34] [Magical Strength: 34] [REGEN: 534] [Free Points: 0] [Traits: Physique of the Abyssal Kraken, Apex Predator of the Depths, Lifeblood of the Abyssal Kraken, World First Ranker] [Skills] [END STATUS] After glancing over my stats, that is. Since I have been focusing so much on strength, I decided to raise my other stats a bit over the past few days. Closing the gap a bit with my strength. I don’t want to end up dying because my body is too fragile to handle things weaker than me after all. Then again, my regeneration is incredibly high at this point. Over fifty three times a normal human’s regeneration. It’s to the point that I can heal a large scratch that would normally take a week to heal in just three hours. In fact, most of my wounds heal within a day at this point. Even some broken bones only take a little less than a day to heal now. And my REGEN stat is still only going up from here. I’m really glad I have that trait. It’s probably the sole thing keeping me alive out here. Without it I would’ve died long ago in those caves. Speaking of the caves, I’ll be heading back to them tomorrow after I finish with the jobs in the morning. Before going to the new ocean. There shouldn’t be anything there other than that serpent, which I’ve largely caught up with in level at this point. And I really want to deal with that abyss-damned monster before leaving this ocean. Even if I’m only leaving temporarily. Anyway, I go ahead and select the skills menu before looking at my latest skill. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. [REQUESTING SKILLS: USER AQUA FALLEN] [8 SKILLS RETRIEVED] [MORE THAN THREE SKILLS DETECTED] [ALL SKILLS CONDENSED] [Skill 1: Abyssal Kraken’s Embrace] [Skill 2: Hydrokinetic Wrath] [Skill 3: Call of the Abyss] [Skill 4: Abyssal Kraken’s Partial Shift] [Skill 5: Pressure of the Abyss] [Skill 6: Abyssal Reversal] [Skill 7: Maw of the Abyssal Kraken] [Skill 8: Devourer of the Abyss] [Description: Devourer of the Abyss allows the user to summon forth a number of Abyssal Orca mouths to devour all enemies in the surrounding area that are nearing death already. Furthermore, every enemy devoured through this skill will grant the user a surge in regeneration for a brief period of time.] [Cost: Devourer of the Abyss costs 100 mana to use.] [Cooldown: Devourer of the Abyss has no cooldown.] [END SKILLS] And what a skill it is. The skill itself is rather picky about what enemies are considered ‘nearing death’, and it really does only attack those enemies. But it’s a very useful skill that targets all the enemies considered by the System to be ‘nearing death’ that are near me. Which, when I tested it in a large room of monsters, flopped miserably in my first test. Since I couldn’t exactly go around attacking the monsters and leaving them all just barely still alive. Nor did I know what the System considers nearing death. But my second test went a lot better. With me testing numerous monsters at once and leaving them at various different states of injury to see what was considered nearing death. By the end, I’ve come to the understanding that it just means they have a mortal wound and will eventually die. I’m rather satisfied with the skill overall, seeing as it finishes off potential loose ends in the middle of a battle without me having to do anything. And I get a temporary boost in regeneration healing me on top of that. As for the exact effectiveness of that temporary boost? It seems to vary with the level of the monster killed. For each monster. Or devoured, I guess. The monsters closer to my level actually seem to give enough boost to heal small wounds on my body if I devour several of them through the skill. But only over the course of several seconds. On the other hand, monsters that are lower level barely make a dent unless I’m using the skill to devour a lot of them. At that point my own natural regeneration from REGEN is more than they give. I continue swimming through the water as my thoughts begin to shift towards the Kraken family. The Azuranths, who have actually reached out to me in the last couple days. Something far more favorable about them over the blubbery general and his lot of fish is that the patriarch of the Kraken family actually apologized for not leaving the Abyss sooner to find me. And for everything I had to go through up until now. Despite all the blubbery general’s words about how much he cares about me, he has never once apologized for his actions. Almost like he doesn’t even regret them and would do it all over again. Which really puts into perspective the reason I was told my mother ran away from him and his family to the Krakens. His top priority is and will always be the Orcayne family as a whole. Regardless of who in the family it hurts. And to make it even worse was the blubbery general’s reaction to her leaving. He didn’t even chase after her at first. Just seemed to assume she would come back and covered up her leaving. It wasn’t until a year passed and I was apparently born that he finally realized she wasn’t coming back. But by then it was too late as my parents ended up lost in the Abyss somehow. No one will explain how though. Either because they don’t know or they just won’t let me know. I let out a sigh as I continue swimming, simply fidgeting with the trident in my hand due to still not having any damned pockets. Stupid armor. What armor doesn’t have pockets? It’s the one downside of this level thirty gear. Gear that is actually starting to be a little out of date as well. Too bad the next best equipment isn’t available until I reach level seventy-five from the Sponsorship System menu. Since that’s the next level for a new trait. So another twenty-five levels before that for me. I frown at that thought before speeding up until I return to the city. Then I head straight to the inn instead of the guild building since they are too overworked right now. According to Jen. But right as I’m about to enter the inn, I turn around and head to the blacksmith’s place. Where I ask him about the adamantium again. Specifically asking if he’ll be able to craft with it when his level raises. And his answer is that he doesn’t know. Hmm... I head back to the inn while wondering if I can just skip all these sponsorship sets of armor and weapons to get an adamantium one crafted. But after a bit of thought, I throw that idea away for now. It’ll be a while before the blacksmiths of this world even figure out how to forge with adamantium, regardless of them having the strength to do that or not. Which means I’m still stuck waiting for level seventy-five for my next equipment. A pity. At least the serpent doesn’t have any mental attacks, according to the tour guide. So I should only be dealing with physical attacks. And my physical strength should be superior than the serpent’s. Should being the key word. With that thought, I go ahead and head to bed after arriving in my room. After eating, that is.