Chapter 12

As he started running, he activated his rewards, starting with the platinum one.

[Natural Restoration]

{Epic Trait: Your natural healing works differently; instead of regenerating, your body heals itself at the same speed as your natural regeneration, but instead restores your body to its most healthy state constantly, affecting even curses, diseases and afflictions. Of course, the more severe an effect, the longer and harder it is for you to get restored to full condition.}

[Memory Reading]

{Rare Ability: Allows you the read the memories of a target who cannot or won’t resist your influence, to read their memories you have to place the palm of your hand on their forehead. The stronger their will to resist you the harder it is to read.}

“A tough one right at the start,” he growled even as he ran without slowing down. Memory Reading was extremely tempting. The benefits it would have in the political arena would have been incredible.

He still picked Natural Restoration. Fighting the undead, liches, necromancers and many other mages meant that he would eventually deal with many curses and afflictions. His body dealing with it naturally would be a treasure.

Especially with Total Breathing improving his recovery. More importantly, it might even improve some aspects of his training, particularly mana side effects.

Next, he activated the silver ticket.

[Momentum]

{Uncommon Ability: The longer you are moving, the faster you start going, with a maximum of 500%. This limit can be expanded through training.}

[Web Slinger]

{Uncommon Ability: Allows you to shoot sticky and durable ropes of spider webs from your body. These webs dissolve naturally after an hour.}

Immediately, he picked Momentum. There was not even a question. He could run fast, but making sure that he could run the distance between the elven village and Stratholme in an hour was too tempting.

The only disadvantage was that he couldn’t combine it with Bloom, but still, it was an acceptable trade-off. Especially since he no longer needed to rely on Bloom to catch ambushes.

He pulled the first gold ticket.

[Expert Biology]

{Elite Skill: You are an expert in the field of Biology, the study of life. You are intimately familiar with the biology of most organisms, ranging from mammals to cellular life. If you were to be given magic, you could probably figure out Biomancy rather quickly.}

[Chronolog]

{Common Trait: You have a perfect internal clock, you can when was the last time you did something. You can recall things by the milliseconds and you are perfect in timing things like a stopwatch too.}

He shook his head at the disparity. A choice between a common trait and elite skill was not that hard, especially common trait was underwhelming. Meanwhile, Biology could provide a lot of benefits for Bloom.

He activated it, and information rushed into his mind, giving him an understanding of different forms of life. He also realized that improving the efficiency of Bloom was a very small part of it.

Potentially, it could be used many ways, from figuring out different ways of healing to developing more effective ways to train … once he could sit down for more than a few days.

He activated his last ticket.

[Dread Knight]

{Elite Trait: Race Change – You are a Dread Knight, a Higher Caste of Undead specialising in Direct Martial Combat. As a Dread Knight, you have very potent physical abilities as well as virtually unlimited stamina, the only thing you need to sustain yourself with is Energy. You are naturally capable of using the ability [Dread Blade] and possess great Necromancy, Darkness and Martial Affinity, augmenting the potency of related abilities, skills and magic. But you are rendered vulnerable to Holy and Light-based abilities and magic.}

[Call Lightning]

{Uncommon Ability: Allows you to call down lightning that strikes from the sky to strike any location within your sensory range, not very effective indoors.}

“Now, I know that’s a joke,” he said as he immediately picked Call Lightning. Turning undead was a joke, no matter how strong one might be. He picked Call Lightning even though he doubted he would use it a lot.

Once he picked Call Lightning, however, he received a nice surprise. He unlocked a second Ability slot because he collected five abilities, something he didn’t know before, and immediately slotted Bloom back. Combined with Momentum, its effectiveness would multiply.

Moving five times faster was incredible, and ability to use Bloom gave him an even bigger edge. With Momentum removing the biggest issue with his return speed, he decided to stray from the shortest path. Instead, he drifted south, the thick forest granting him the perfect way to detect undead parties.

They were everywhere, though he noticed that not all of them were roaming. Some parties were stationary, and the way the forest was reacting their own version of pain, it couldn’t be anything good.

The only good thing was the density of undead, showing that what he did at the elven border was paying off. Lordaeron wasn’t the only one stretched thin due to battle. Undead were also being challenged.

As he ran, he used Total Concentration Breathing, his Talented trait allowing him to improve it significantly. He was yet to reach the unique peak state that it stayed active constantly, but he could keep it up while he was running, which was progress.

He altered his course whenever he noticed an undead party. He didn’t even need to slow down. Flowing Dance allowed him to run through them without missing a step, and continue toward the next target. One of the stationary ones.

He had no idea what he would find there. The spellwork radiated death energy, which unintentionally created a camouflage for the others. Soon, he arrived there, only to find half a dozen robed figure had been gathered around a sickly green circle.

He didn’t know if killing the forest was the main objective or a side effect, but he knew that he couldn’t allow that. Even with the hulking, distinct presence of an abomination standing guard.

He shivered at the sight. A giant monster, made of corpses stitched together, surrounded by many ghouls and zombies. An abomination. “You’re not going to win a beauty contest, buddy,” he said, wishing that he could use Rally on himself to combat the visceral disgust rising inside.

However, instead of rushing to the abomination, he used Flowing Steps to dodge it. A good choice, as for a twenty-feet tall monstrosity, the abomination moved with shocking speed.

Just not fast enough to catch him. Ghouls and zombies were even slower. The robed figures were still human, but that didn’t slow down his blade even for a moment.

He didn’t bother with water-breathing forms. The first acolyte lost its head before the others even registered Arvis’ presence. The second crumbled before he could cast a spell, collapsing with a blade through its chest. Two more fell to a cleave.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The last two tried to surrender. He didn’t care. Some sins were too much to forgive. He decapitated one.

“The Scourge will not forget you, paladin!” the last one said.

“Is that what you’re calling your army of dead flesh?” he asked, and the acolyte’s face turned angry, like he had just cursed him.

Fanatics.

One last slash dealt with him. That time had been enough for the ghouls to surround him and cut his escape path, while the abomination moved toward him. He could still retreat, but an abomination could destroy a settlement, and destroying it meant depriving the undead a powerful asset.

Or, the Scourge, as they apparently called themselves.

Without the risk from the acolytes, he examined the abomination in greater detail, as it was the first time he had seen it. Its body was a grotesque patchwork of stitched-together corpses, multiple arms grafted onto a torso made from many combined bodies. A wide variety of weapons, including hooks and chains, dangled from its limbs. Not the ideal weapons, but with the monstrous strength it had, understandable.

Arvis dealt with the ghouls first, Flowing Water allowing him to dance among the smaller ones without getting caught in a trap. Only after he finished dealing with them he dared to target the abomination. He tried to slice its leg in one hit, but to his surprise, even with his strength, he failed to chop it off at once.

There was a thick, unnatural resistance, probably the same necrotic energy overload that was allowing it to move at such speeds. The massive creature turned toward him, one enormous arm sweeping horizontally in a blow that would have turned him to paste.

He dodged as he swung against the arm, using Water Surface Slash, maximum power he could achieve without adding mana.