Scarlet Asger

“So when are you planning on going solo again for Fractures?” Tar asks, making me frown slightly as I toy around with the sword made of blood floating in the air in front of me in the middle of the training room at the manor hosting my suite.

Honestly? Not sure. Maybe after I reach level fifty-five or level sixty. So not much longer. But I will still go ahead and join them for the first Fracture of each Assault, just to continue working on our teamwork.

“That means you decided to help them for the Interschool Tournament this Winter?” Tar asks, sounding not the least bit surprised.

Yeah. They’ve helped me a lot, and I’m a little curious as to the rewards for winning the Interschool Tournament.

“Rewards?” Tar asks, sounding confused. “What are the rewards?”

I raise a brow in surprise before refocusing on controlling the sword as I answer, “One of the rewards for getting first place in one of the non-prime competitions during a tournament is a free pass to enter any city and fight in any Fracture you wish to fight in, regardless of who is already in it.”

“Oh,” Tar mutters, making my lips quirk up in a smirk at the sound of his surprised tone. “That’s good.”

Yep.

I control the sword in front of me to move slightly away before creating another weapon – a spear this time – and sending it around towards the sword with a frown on my face at the mental stress building up in my head.

Looks like controlling more than one weapon at once is difficult for me right now.

“Well, that is using your mental stat, which is a lot worse in terms of capabilities than your magical or physical stats,” Tar explains while appearing in the room. He then continues speaking in my head despite being on Earth, “Blood lycans aren’t the greatest at manipulation or manifestation skills, since they tend to be a lot more mentally taxing than the other ones you’ve been using up till now.”

Hmm. Makes sense.

I turn around and focus on the force measuring machine. Something a lot of Guardians use to measure the strength of their physical body and their skills in general. Then I raise a hand and send the sword flying straight at the machine, where it then turns into a splatter of blood after hitting it due to the hardness of the machine itself. Something that is made out of demon materials from Demon Isle and is strong enough to take the punch of a Class III Guardian with its 500,000 arc durability.

The machine takes a second before a number appears on the screen above the device, making my eyes widen slightly.

[1125 arc]

Wow. Did I read that correctly?

“Yes, you did,” Tar says before adding, “if you think that’s a lot, you should try testing your own strength right now. It’ll most likely surprise you.”

Oh. Right. I didn’t do that.

I wonder how strong I am anyways? I know the average arc of raw punching force a human has – not including the use of skills or techniques, such as System skills or regular martial arts – is about 100 or so arc give or take. A measurement that humanity developed specifically because of the Guardians.

“Punch the machine and find out,” Tar says, sounding like he’s ordering around a child, which has me scowling at him for a second before turning around and walking straight to the machine.

Then I punch it.

And immediately find my jaw dropping open in shock at the sight of the numbers that show up a few seconds later.

[3660 arc]

“What the fuck?!” I shout out loud, just staring at the number until it disappears.

Tar just sighs before saying, “Might as well tell you now since I know you’ll just ask later. The formula for calculating the amount of arc an individual has in raw punching force is calculated through adding together the multipliers for their Strength and Agility capabilities. Then multiplying the result by their total stat points in Physical times 25 arc. And that is the estimated amount of arc someone should be able to deal in a single punch without System skills or any other aids.”

I quickly do some mental math before finding that the result for a regular human is about 100 arc, just like I already knew. Since all creatures start out with a stat of 10 in each stat until their reality warp upon contracting, changing their stats and even their capabilities depending on their magic.

Wow. That’s… unexpected.

“I don’t know why, because it should’ve been pretty obvious that you were getting stronger just by the stronger demons you’ve been killing,” Tar says while floating over and landing on my shoulder.

Yeah, but all I knew from that was that demons that I would’ve previously been unable to hurt are now getting hurt from me doing the same thing to them. I didn’t have an exact comparison, since leveling up and raising my stats has my body automatically adjusting to the change.

And it’s not like I’ve tried punching through a wall or something to test it.

So cut me some slack, okay?

I hear the tanuki sigh, but he doesn’t say anything else, indicating that he’s dropping the subject.

Anyways, 3660 arc… I’m over twenty times as strong as the average regular human being now? That’s… incredible.

And it’s only been about a week and a half since I contracted.

“Remember that you’re only advancing so quickly because of how reckless you are,” Tar mutters before adding, “and your strength and agility capabilities are far higher than the average human on account of being a blood lycan.”

Oh. Right.

That aside, the blood weapon still dealt a good chunk of damage. Especially for reusable ranged weapons.

Something that I didn’t have before.

It’s just too bad that the blood manifestation skill doesn’t let me make ranged weapons like guns or bows and arrows. Only blades.

But using it to make daggers, knives, swords, spears, and all other manners of bladed weapon before sending them flying at the enemy works just as well.

I wasn’t really able to test the blood manifestation while out in the demonic assaults yesterday since I used up a large portion of my mana in the first Fracture, and it kept giving me a headache since I kept trying to make more blades than I should’ve. So I just left testing the skills till now.

And up next is Blood Shadow.