Chapter 158: Health is Important

The rest of the rift was not very exciting. In fact, the raccoon was the most interesting opponent he faced.

Some other monsters tickled his interest, but they were all very slow in comparison to the black raccoon. And while they could handle some more punishment, they didn’t really have any way to harm Julius on their own.

All it really accomplished was making his hands hurt. It was safe to say that punching metal things with fleshy fists was not the brightest idea.

Although he didn’t have trouble with them it didn’t mean he enjoyed tearing his fists apart. Luckily, he had the perfect monsters to vent his frustration on.

Furthermore, even with him not having his constructed armor on. It made him realize that the monsters by the ravine and tall grass were stronger than the ones he faced in the forest.

The wolves and fat owl had been quite the worthy foes. Even the jackal like monsters were better than most of the other ones he fought today. Only the raccoon monster provided a fun challenge.

However, there was something bigger that had been bugging him the entire time.

He was only able to level [Flash Step] once. Just once. Additionally, none of his other skills made any improvements either.

[Flash Step lvl 1 -> lvl 2]

The first few levels of a skill were always easy to level up, so he was confused why it wasn’t already level 3 or 4. It’s not like he wasn’t using his skill well enough or often enough. He was practically spamming [Flash Step] at the end of it and only then did he get that elusive level.

It was weird, he felt like he had been pushing himself enough to gain some levels or something at least, but nothing really happened. No matter how hard and how many times he used [Flash Step] or any other skills for that matter, he only got a single level and an annoying throbbing pain in his soul. That seemed to increase once he got [Flash Step] to level 2.

However, he tried his best to ignore it and use [Sage of Savagery] to dull the pain. Which worked pretty well.

He left the rift soon after, feeling a bit weirded out by the experience and immediately went to the training rooms to see if he could figure out what was going on.

***

The next couple of weeks went by in a hazy blur. And soon enough the two-month timeline he had with Dante was upon him.

During those weeks, he had gone back to that same Tier 3 rift a few times. To his immense concern, he didn’t experience any growth during that period other than his new [Flash Step] skill.

[Flash Step lvl 2 -> lvl 5]

However, even that was outrageously slow. For how much he was using it, he expected more for a low level skill.

It was the same for all of his other skills as well. Skills like [Barrier of Severance] and others that weren’t at the level 20 barrier weren’t growing at all.

One couldn’t imagine his frustration with his current situation. No matter how many nights he spent or how hard he pushed himself in the rifts or training, he wasn’t able to do anything.

It was like he had hit a brick wall and couldn’t move past it. No matter what he did, it was like it didn’t even matter.

It wasn’t only that, but every level he gained with [Flash Step] didn’t come with the usual satisfaction but came with a stinging pain that raced throughout his soul. Each one worse the last.

For someone like him, who had experienced such rapid growth during these past several months, it was a source of irritation. Every day he had pushed himself harder, but nothing seemed to make a difference.

In reality, it actually seemed to hurt him more than help. His soul felt like a dirty old rag. It was as if someone had beat him up, rolled him into a ball, and dragged him through shit-covered spikes.

The others noticed something wrong as well. They realized that he was looking more tired than usual. All of them, even Edgar, his fellow training fanatic had been more vocal than usual about him taking a break.

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In the past, Julius would have told them not to worry, but even he had enough self-awareness to realize that something was wrong.

He was fraying at the seams and understood that he wouldn’t be able to keep it up.

That was why he had decided a few days ago to stop training altogether. It was something that he was very reluctant to do, but it was something he truly believed to be necessary.

Previously, he thought that he needed some normal time to heal his soul fatigue. That’s how it had always been. He was always still able to train, it was just a little sore for a bit.