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The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 161
🕑 Added 2025-08-12 22:40:16 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 160 | Index | Chapter 162 >>
Ronan decided to just use all three at once. It was the first time he’d used a skills tome alongside an endless treasury token. There was a fun moment as all three effects began at the same time. He wondered which would finish first.
In the end, the tokens won out. They only had the jingling coins and the bursting token to display. His two items appeared in separate messages before the flicking pages of the myriad skills tome were even finished.
[Endless Treasury Token (Common)] has been consumed x2!
You have received [Bloodstained Berry (Common)] x3!
Bloodstained Berry (Common)
Dark purple berries with splashes of vibrant crimson throughout their flesh. The juice of these berries is believed to enhance the lifeforce of those who consume them.
+1 Vitality
You have received [Ring of Focus (Common)]!
Ring of Focus (Common)
An enchanted ring that has been damaged. It still exudes a faint magical aura, but it is diminished to the point of uselessness.
+1 Acuity
More berries and a minor stat boost were acceptable items. Ronan ate the berries, tossing them into his gob one at a time while waiting for the myriad skills tome to decide what to give him. The ring slipped onto one of his fingers, slightly bolstering his acuity.
The change wasn’t noticeable, as his sorcerer sub-class increased the stat so much that a single point wasn’t enough of a change for him to measure without doing some tests. And he wasn’t about to do tests.
[Myriad Skills Tome (Common)] has been consumed!
You have received the skill [Fast Grow (Common)]!
Fast Grow (Common): Speed up the growth of a plant using mana. Depending on the type of plant, growth time can be reduced to near-instantaneous. (Cost: 5 Mana + 2% Max Mana per second + Variable Cost depending on plant type).
Unfortunately the skill was disappointing. Still, it could be used as fuel for other skills or kept on the backburner in case Ronan ever decided to take up gardening. Maybe there were some cool plants in this new, integrated multiverse.
With the remainder of the time in stage 2, Ronan continued to practice his sorcery healing. He was gradually getting used to the correct mana flows and was mostly able to replicate the pattern for minor heal and suture wound, but they still didn’t activate properly.
Stage 3 was fun. Really fun.
Ronan had to admit that he missed just being a mindless brute and punching the crap out of his foes. The harder the tutorial difficulty and the stronger the enemies outside of it grew, the more he was forced to work on his shortcomings. Back here, in the normal difficulty tutorial, those goblin shamans who once seemed like the most terrifying monsters he could possibly face, now fell in a single combo from surging strikes.
He left some of the warriors for Keith to brush up his combat abilities, but for the most part it was Ronan doing the heavy lifting. For old times’ sake, he even allowed the second shaman to summon a zombified fleshbeast so that he could go toe-to-toe with the hideous abomination.
It was gross, what with the disgusting flesh filled with pus-sacs and rotten hunks of meat, but the battle felt liberating. When it finally ended, he had soared up in levels and was ready to pick a class once more.
There was no debate. He could have chosen healer to continue his practice, but this was a unique opportunity that he wouldn’t have when he returned to the harder difficulty tutorial. Reaching level 50 in this iteration would be a breeze, and thus Ronan could earn himself two more chronos merits.
You have selected [Dao Child (Legendary)] as your class!
Initiating class infusion…
Ronan suddenly felt his body go stiff. He tried to move, but was unable to. Instant paralysis. His entire body lit up in pain. Ice, fire, and lightning. All three coursed through him in a cycling wave of agony that grew more intense with every passing moment.
At one point it started to cycle between the three distinct sensations. Waves of burning agony. Lances of icy shock. Electric convulsions that left him aching all over. Then a fourth, deeper pain that felt as though two invisible hands had grasped his soul and twisted in opposite directions.
Once his mind had recovered from the shock of that, he realised all of the pain had subsided. He felt… drastically different.
Class infusion complete! You have become a [Dao Child (Legendary)]!
You have received the class skill [Reality Defying Cultivation (Legendary)]!
Reality Defying Cultivation (Legendary): The power of the Dao Child is that they are not confined by the limits of the world around them. For ordinary cultivators, they must hunt down the correctly aspected shards in order to progress on their chosen path. The Dao Child can use any shard to cultivate any path they wish to, albeit at a 50% efficiency rate. (Stacks cumulatively with similar effects)
You have received the class skill [Three Thousand Dao, One Destiny (Legendary)]!
Three Thousand Dao, One Destiny (Legendary): There are many paths to power in this cosmos. Cultivators of old believed that resonating with aspects of the world around them, embodying them in their entirety, was one such path. As the ancient scriptures say, there are three thousand dao, but all are the Dao. This skill unlocks the ability for the user to resonate with concepts of the cosmos, or dao, following a path towards divinity. Depending on the dao they make their destiny, the benefits or drawbacks will differ.
Bonus stats for class have been retroactively applied
Reading through the two class skills for dao child left Ronan catatonic. They were absurdly powerful. The first skill was essentially a superior version of conversion cultivation. Far superior.
Not only was it better, but it would also stack with conversion cultivation, meaning Ronan could use any shard to cultivate any path at a 60% efficiency rate. That was far from perfect, but it meant he was about to take a great leap forward.
On the other hand, the second skill was a lot more confusing, but potentially even greater. He’d heard of dao from online novels and such, but didn’t really understand it. He’d never been particularly into that genre.
As far as he could tell from the skill’s description it would allow him to resonate with certain concepts and gain related benefits. He would need to do some more testing and figure out what that meant, but for now it wasn’t the main attraction of the class.
The first skill was the big win, along with the other benefits it gave, like a 2x cultivation talent multiplier and a 50% efficacy boost to the effects of cultivation. Beyond all of that however was the absolutely insane 80 free stat points for every single level he gained until level 50.
After completing stage 3 he was level 26, which meant 16 levels of 80 retroactive stat points had been dumped into his status, leaving him with a total of 1280 stat points to distribute. A frankly absurd total that beat even his most successful iterations in terms of the number of stat points accumulated.
A few iterations with this class, and whatever it evolved into, and he would see some massive gains to his experience multipliers. He might even have a shot at taking down the sector boss, Veloxis the Dreamweaver.
Ronan’s current goal had been to complete the hardest tutorial difficulties he could before returning to the “outside” world and pushing ahead. However, with this class everything had been turned on its head.
Goals that had previously been unachievable were now well within his sights. In any case, he could just go with the flow and see what he accomplished. There were no real constraints on what he had to do.
With so many stat points it would be easy to take the simple route out, splitting them evenly among all of his stats. However, Ronan knew that would be inadvisable, even if it would work out fine.
First of all, his current combat style. He still leaned towards being a melee fighter, switching between various weapons depending on what he had at the time and what suited the situation best. However, with his growing mastery over sorcery he was also mixing offensive spells into his repertoire—mostly mana bolt, but that would change as he learned a wider range of magic.
If his goal in this iteration was to defeat Veloxis, which he had decided it was, and to claim the sector pillar, then Ronan would need to choose a stat distribution that supported that goal. There was room for some more experimental choices, though. He would still earn another 2000 or so stat points before even reaching level 50. By the time he encountered the sector boss he would probably have gained a total of 4 or 5 thousand. It was crazy to even think about.
The initial decision was to lean mostly towards strength, agility, dexterity, and intelligence. That meant hitting hard and fast, being flexible, and having spells that were equivalent to missiles.
He would make smaller investments in all of his other stats, as having regeneration, resistance, and his vitality, endurance, and wisdom at a high amount was a worthwhile choice. Health, stamina, and mana were the foundations of combat and having a large enough pool to keep fighting as long as he needed was essential.
By the time he made the decision, the countdown had almost finished. They were about to be whisked away to stage 4, where he would encounter Terry, Dana, and Jackson again after a long break. Ronan was looking forward to it.
That, and the fact he was about to cultivate like a maniac.
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Comments
IdolTrust
That fast grow skill might be good if he goes to the forest again. Because it could use it to grow one of the trees. Also, the soul pact might be more equal or he would be master of the split.
