Chapter 10: Too Strong, too fast
Azeroth's grin didn't fade.
If anything… it sharpened.
[STATS]
Physique: 0.9
Soul: 1.4
He glanced at his empty hands where another essence core had just dissolved, then at the shrinking pile beside him. Dozens had been reduced to glittering dust.
But In exchange, his stats has basically tripled.
Something that should have taken months…
He had achieved in minutes.
And that was without a proper essence technique.
Essence arts—even the most basic—were tools useable only for those at the Common Rank or above. As they required active manipulation of essence, something only evolved individuals could do.
They came in two forms: physical essence arts and soul essence arts.
Simple enough. One strengthened the body. The other refined the soul.
Azeroth, having just advanced, was yet to learn either, but with the way his stats were skyrocketing….
He wondered if he even needed one.
There were still about five cores left. He rolled his shoulders, inhaled deeply, and got back to work.
Each core dissolved faster than the last.
By the time the final one melted into pure essence and vanished, another surge flooded his body and his stats have increased by another 0.3 points each.
[STATS]
Physique: 1.2
Soul: 1.7
The feeling was exhilarating, He could feel micro-shifts rippling through his muscles, fibers tightening and strengthening in real time. Even his soul sharpened too—becoming cleaner, clearer, smoother. like someone had had just replaced a laggy processor with a high-end one.
"Ho…"
He closed his eyes and took a long, steadying breath, trying to calm his overexcited heart.
He could barely stop the grin that was spreading across his face at this moment.
Desperate for a distraction, he turned toward the two monster corpses lying next to the emptied pile of cores. He scooted closer and pressed a palm against the nearest one, mentally activating Devour.
Having used it repeatedly to devour the dozens of cores, he had gotten pretty used to it and no longer even needed to close his eyes or concentrate—the trait responded instantly.
And a dark cloud erupted from his hand in a thick wave.
It spilled across the corpse like slow-moving tar, consuming every inch. It slithered across the ground toward the second corpse, enveloping it too.
Then—
Fwoosh.
The shadows snapped back into his body.
But the corpses were gone, not even bones remained.
Azeroth inhaled sharply as the new wave of increase slammed into him.
"This… is insane."
The grin he wore now was one that could only be considered creepy at best but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not when his sub-trait kept proving itself more absurd by the second.
He just confirmed that even devouring corpses would increase his stats!
His current stats were now,
[STATS]
Physique: 1.3
Soul: 1.9
For context, a normal human without evolving, can at most reach a physical limit of 0.1, so right now, he was about thirteen times stronger than a normal human — Which was mind blogging considering that he just evolved the day before but on second thought,
"Isn't this too broken? for a sub-trait?"
Considering that he belonged to a powerful viscount family—one with abundant resources—he was sure not to lack good stuff to devour!
And if the time did come that they were no longer able to support him, he would have become too broken for it to matter!
"Tch. Calm down…"
Just as his thoughts were about to spiral, He caught himself, trying and failing to return his expression to normal….
He glanced towards the caged monster — the goat-horned rabbit.
It was still curled up, asleep, completely unaware.
'Whatever father did sure is effective' he thought inwardly.
Azeroth was about to rise up and approach it, ready to test his sub-trait on a living creature when a thought struck him.
He hesitated.
"…Should I?"
He rose up and attempted to take a step when all of a sudden…
Whooosh—
BANG.
"Ow—! What the—?!"
His face met cold iron as he slammed straight into the cage bars at a speed his mind definitely wasn't prepared for. The entire cage rattled violently. So did he.
Rubbing his forehead, he stared wide-eyed from where he had been standing… to where he had ended up.
"What the hell…?"
"How did I— oh, crap."
His expression twisted through multiple emotions in the span of a second as realization hit him like the cage had, only now realizing that such a sudden spike of stats might not be a good thing Afterall.
As not only was his balance wrecked, his entire body control has gone to shit, his entire coordination? Total disaster.
He tested another step, carefully aiming to shift a single foot to the right…
And moved several full meters instead.
He tried again—slow, careful, deliberate.
Gently lifting his right foot only to appear half a meter to the side.
"…Oh come on!"
He flailed, overcorrected, and nearly crashed into the cage again. This time he caught himself by grabbing the bars causing the entire cage to rattle.
His face went pale.
It finally sank in.
"Okay. this is bad."
He stepped back—but forgot how far "back" was to his new physique and nearly toppled over.
Azeroth swallowed remembering moments in anime where the protagonist punches someone into a blood mist simply because they could not control their own strength properly.
Not wanting that to happen to him anytime soon, He took a breath, got down on the floor, and planted both palms firmly on the ground.
His position perfect for a push up which was his intent.
He pushed—
And launched himself straight up like a spring-loaded trap.
He hit the ground again with a thud.
"…shit."
He adjusted. Slowed down. Tried again.
This time he still left the ground, but not as much.
By the tenth push-up he barely rose an inch.
By the twentieth his muscles began remembering what control meant.
"Good… good… this's better."
He shifted to sit-ups. Then squats. Jump squats. Lunges. Balance drills. Short sprints—each one almost making him crash into something until he got the rhythm down.
Sweat dripped.
Breath deepened.
Azeroth felt his mind click into the familiar, almost meditative focus he always reached when training seriously.
Finally, he rose and moved—carefully—toward the weapon rack.
The weighted wooden sword he usually struggled to lift with one hand looked almost delicate now. He picked it up.
It felt like lifting a feather. But as if activated by the thought, its weight actually shifted to match his current limits.
Azeroth grinned.
"Perfect."