Seed of Titan-Chapter 216: First Human Essence Assimilation: Unexpected Gains

Chapter 216: First Human Essence Assimilation: Unexpected Gains

Following his brief excursion, Drai’s time in the army was mostly uneventful. He and the rest of the Seventh Squad usually spent their day training until early afternoon before busying themselves with their own activities.

Drai noticed that Danny and Beachball had become less rowdy, preferring to leave the house and train somewhere else in their free time instead of playing around. Drai found it unfortunate that his training room’s access was restricted, otherwise he could’ve offered to train with them there.

The others, however, had been more or less the same, though there were a few times when Drai returned from training late at night that he stumbled upon Gramps in the living room seemingly having a whispery discussion with Ghost. But since Drai had barely interacted with either of the pair outside of squad training and still felt quite awkward around them, he never joined the duo and only gave them a passing greeting before disappearing into his room.

Around a week after his release, Drai was drenched in sweat in the training room, listening closely to the monotonous voice from the machine he was using.

"Completion: One hundred percent."

"Finally!" Drai huffed with clenched fists before slumping onto the platform. It took longer than he thought to master the finger technique. He had to sacrifice quite a bit of time from his strength and toughness training to make up for his slow progress.

Massaging his arm that was sore from repeated rapid twisting, Drai contemplated briefly before deciding to put aside the machine for now. He didn’t really have any other technique in mind right now after he achieved his goal of having an extremely precise strike.

’Moreover, I still need to incorporate Avid Grabber into this strike,’ Drai thought amid his heavy breathing.

After he was done recovering, Drai sat cross-legged and said, "System, I still have that spear guy’s essence right? I want to assimilate it now. Will it be enough for a level up?"

However, instead of replying flatly as usual, the System said something unexpected.

[You haven’t spoken to me for a while, user.]

Drai was stunned upon hearing and seeing the reply. Although the System had always been interactive, to Drai, it was no more than a highly intelligent and capable program. But its words this time made Drai wonder if there was more to the System than just lines of codes.

"Well, there hasn’t been much reason for me to reach out to you," Drai eventually said while suppressing the sense of apprehension he never had before toward the voice in his head.

After a brief pause, the System spoke again, this time reverting to its usual demeanor as it answered Drai’s earlier questions.

[The essence you instructed me to isolate during your escape from Siyeun Mountains remains there. Quantity and quality-wise, it shouldn’t be sufficient for a level up. However, there might be other determining variables since its source was a member of your species.]

Despite his mind being preoccupied by the System’s peculiarity, Drai was still taken aback by the last statement. He had been saving the man’s essence not particularly because he was a human, but because he was sure its quality was a lot higher compared to the ones he drained from random beasts. In addition, he also wanted to see if he’d actually gain a useful skill from it since the man was a rather decent fighter.

"Well, I hope nothing goes wrong. Then let’s do the assimilation," Drai eventually said, temporarily shelving his concerns about the System since there was nothing he could do about it.

[Are you sure you want to proceed with the assimilation using the saved essence?]

"Yes."

[Authorization acquired. Commencing assimilation of human essence. Please refrain from moving excessively until the process is complete.]

As soon as the process began, Drai felt that it was different from the ones he experienced before. He could sense the essence surging throughout his body, causing an internal change at an unprecedented rate.

Not even half an hour later, the sensation rapidly subsided, and the System announced the completion shortly after.

[Assimilation complete.]

[Experience and skill points acquired.]

[Unique skill acquired.]

[User has leveled up. Stats have been adjusted.]

[Strength +8.9]

[Constitution +7.5]

[Agility +6.3]

[Dexterity +5.7]

[Intelligence +3]

[Transcendence +0.3]

[SP +15]

[New skills available]

Reading the screen, Drai was pleasantly surprised by his stat growth. He didn’t know if the man’s essence had caused this or if it was meant to be like this after getting his second class, but the stat increase was among the highest he had ever gotten.

Drai was also quite impressed by his intelligence growth. He was sure this lesser attribute of his had plateaued since he only ever received meager increases every time he leveled up aside from his evolution phase. Even though he wasn’t really aware of any tangible effect from his intelligence growth, Drai somehow felt smarter just by seeing its number go up.

Of course, Drai also noticed the unique skill he just obtained. However, knowing that it could be either a miss or hit, he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

’I’ll be more than happy if it doesn’t have any weird side effects like Storm Formication’s,’ he thought.

Drai then glanced at his transcendence growth but thought nothing much of it. Compared to his other stats, it was truly a meager increase, but Drai felt it was still better than the 0.1 points he usually received on each level up. Even now, Drai still had no idea what actually contributed to this mysterious stat’s growth, otherwise he would try raising it as high as possible as it determined both his skills’ duration and effectiveness.

On the other hand, the skill points he received were another pleasant surprise. It was one point short of the amount of SP he received after evolving into a second-stager. Recalling his previously empty skill points and the skills newly available to him, Drai felt that this was perfectly timed—unless these new skills turned out to be trash, of course.

Keeping his expectations low, Drai finally opened the skill page and immediately saw two new skills at the top of the list. He automatically let out a relieved sigh upon seeing that neither of them had weird-sounding names. He then proceeded to open the more obvious one.

[Skill: Improved Pain Tolerance]

[Description: Although you can’t get enough of pain, your body thinks otherwise.]

[Effects: Overrides Pain Tolerance. Increases pain tolerance by 50%.]

[Cost: 4 SP]

Reading the skill description, Drai didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Pain wasn’t actually something he looked forward to—it was simply an inevitable byproduct of his training regimen, especially the ones targeting his constitution.

"Just like most people around me, the System doesn’t quite understand how pain and I are related," Drai muttered. He was reminded of the masochist class offered to him during his awakening and couldn’t help wondering what would become of him if he actually went with it.

It didn’t take long for Drai to purchase the skill. The cost was acceptable thanks to his SP influx, and despite its clear downside of hindering Training Freak’s activation, Drai reckoned it would be really handy for facing stronger opponents or perilous situations. He also figured that he could just raise his training intensity to make up for the increased pain threshold.

Drai proceeded to slap his thigh hard to test out the skill and nodded in satisfaction upon feeling a painless strong tap. He thought of punching his leg too but quickly dismissed it, not wanting to waste precious essence if he somehow hurt himself badly.

After moving on to the next skill, Drai was immediately astonished.

[Skill: Infringement Rebound]

[Description: You believe that all is fair in love and war except those ignoring your prized muscles.]

[Effects: Directly affecting skills bypassing the user’s constitution are reflected to its caster by half its original effectiveness, leaving the user with the halved effects.]

[Cost: 9 SP]

"Holy shit! What an overpowered skill!" Drai’s excited shout echoed across the training room.

Even the skill’s high cost couldn’t stop Drai from drooling over his screen. In a matter of seconds, he had nearly emptied his SP again.

"Did this skill get offered because of what Sol did to me back then? I did loathe him when he was doing his thing to my head, but was that really all it took to create this kind of skill? Hmm, maybe I should try loathing people more often then..." Drai mused.

Thinking of how he would always recover from mind affecting skills, Drai realized his new skill would give him a clear opening to retaliate against such casters.

"Not that I really need that since those guys will already be vulnerable if their skills can’t affect me for long, but it will be really helpful in a group fight where I’m not the only target," Drai thought as he moved to his status page, ready to see what kind of skill he just obtained from the assimilation.