The World of Tactics

Chapter Twenty-Three VI: Glimpse Of Truth

"Spiritually attuned. Once someone has reached certain heights (Levels around 30+), they will be able to start to feel the world's nature. They could glimpse some truth from just observation, touching, smelling, and other sorts of funky things that they encountered. What is common is that this kind of sense is completely different from the five original senses of a human.

It is extremely useful because once a person has just the slightest faint feeling, then they will later be able to strengthen it when they get stronger. However, the point is that not everyone can sense everything within nature. For example, a swordmaster with a sense would be able to roughly tell how strong or how well they fare against their enemies. As long as the swordmaster becomes stronger, their senses will gradually also become sharper and the roughness will be much more accurate.

Of course, swordmasters are not the only ones to have such a sense. Even other combatants also had similar senses, which is why many times the confrontation between two similarly grade classes (grade 3 class and levels) would not fully commit to having a real bout against each other. That is also unless one side completely overshadowed the other in power. Otherwise, the confrontation between two parties is only on special occasions in battles. It was also common for two opposing military commanders to face off to boost the morale of their troops.

Others, for example, would have been appraisers. An appraiser with a sense compared to an appraiser without that sense is in two different leagues. An appraiser with a sense would be able to appraise magic items and whatnot. As for an appraiser without the sense, the items that they could appraise were limited along with some rigorous testing in between before being sold off." An old book was written by a historical appraiser.

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It was time for him to leave as well since his mother and siblings were also waiting for his rescue. He knew exactly where to go and it was the small prison cellar in the basement. The quickest way to get there was through the garden, since going down to the basement is slightly complicated when entering the mansion. He shoved all of the unkempt growing weeds and spiky bushes until he made his way to a wall. Close to the wall is a door trap that leads down to the basement prison.

He opened the door straphanger with ease and jumped up with familiarity. He used to explore the mansion and he had stumbled upon this little door trap. Later on, he did some exploration, thinking that it was a dungeon where monsters would come out. However, he was later disappointed that it links back to the mansion and this is where all of the criminals were kept. There are rarely any villagers within his father's fief, causing trouble. After all, all of the criminals would be locked up and sold away as slaves.

He remembered that he had once tricked Hugo, who was five years old at that time, into exploring this place. He had also installed the idea that this is a magical dungeon and there are many monsters in it. Even while walking, he could vaguely see Hugo's shaking body holding onto a wooden toy that looked like a sword. It was a wooden sword that he made for Hugo, who wanted to become a heroic swordsman.

He even tricked Hugo into hitting a dried-up skull that had been in there for so long. At that time, due to that fact, Hugo breaks the skull after a few blind mugshots. He continues to feed on Hugo's heroism. At the end of the exploration, Hugo was disappointed to know that it was not a dungeon nor was the skull any monster. Hugo was massively deflated, but he was quite surprised by Hugo's courage and wit. Thinking about it now, it might have been due to the bloodline flowing within their body.

The smell of the basement prison had a particular smell, but he frowned as the stench was different. A stench that he had just recently discovered when he reached the village. Undead, or specifically zombies. With this, he rushes down through this passage and into the cracked wall. This is where the true basement prison was. He squeezes through the fallen stone walls. His heart spooked as he could feel the lingering screams and a lot of torment crawling off the walls and cell rooms. This was such a huge contrast in different feelings compared to the time he was there.

He got a bad feeling about this and his body reflectively moved on its own, dashing and searching through the cells one by one until he finally saw a pile of zombies crowding outside of one specific cell room. He found it, the cell that his mother and younger siblings were placed in. However, the noises that he made had alerted the zombies and he was stopped in place because the battle grid lines started to form. Before he went to the tab options.

Even though he knows that time has stopped while he is in this mode, he knows that time is still running out for him and he does not want to delay the time. He went to the [Select Units] tab and selected Goon and Uzi. The two were already posted ready for battle. Even then, he still took the time to at least check out the stats of the zombies. None of the zombies was their match. However, he came to a pause. There is only one green ally on the map. It was his mother after he found out that it was his mother's status screen.

[Name: Lily Smith][Class: Mistress][Level: 20/20][Rank: 2][HP: 1/15]

[STR: 3(10) / [1][2][3][][][][][][][] ]

[MAG: 8(10) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][][] ]

[SKL: 2(10) / [1][2][][][][][][][][] ]

[SPD: 4(10) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][] ]

[LCK: 10(10) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] ]

[DEF: 2(10) / [1][2][][][][][][][][] ]

[RES: 7(10) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][][][] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 7][MOV: 5][SKILL: N/A][EXP: --/100][WEA: Fire E]]

[Growth Rate][HP: 20][STR: 25][MAG: 61][SKL: 17][SPD: 28][LCK: 99][DEF: 12][RES: 55]

His heart dropped and only managed to get a hold of himself after a few seconds. Then, he moves on to the [Start Battle] tab and [Start] the battle after selecting the [Yes] option. Right from the start, the maps were quite small, to begin with. An eight by ten map with the hallway being in the center, while the two sides were situated with prison cells. They were on the lower end of the map while the zombies were on the top of the map. His mother was situated on the back wall of the prison cell to the right of the zombies.

The hallway was two squares wide and each prison cell consisted of four squares, forming a two by two square. To get into the prison cell, the metal bars that are lined up on the gridline need to be destroyed first before being allowed entry (25HP, DEF: 10). Some square tiles that were filled up with soil or dirt were obstructed and required a lot of effort to destroy (50HP, DEF: 5). Of course, his aim was not the obstruction, but his mother.

Every truth would be found later on after he rescued his mother. For now, his mother is his top priority. Luckily, there were only five zombies and he had estimated that the battle would finish soon. [Player's Turn][1]. He was the first to move and attack the first zombie. The zombies were indeed much stronger by a few points than those outside patrolling the village. He was only able to deal twelve damage each to the first zombie. Followed by a total of twenty-four damages (John Smith, EXP+20x2).

The next one was Goon and Goon was able to finish off the first zombie without any hiccups (Goon, EXP+100, Level Up). [HP+2][LCK+2] This time, however, Goon needed two attacks to truly finish off the first zombie. The zombies that he encountered here weren't ordinary at all because three of the zombies were at level thirty-three, while the remaining two zombies at the back were at level thirty-five. That was a slight change in level from the previous zombies in the village, but these zombies had stats that were slightly higher than the former.

He was a bit surprised at the four unallocated status points that Goon got for leveling up. He did not doubt that it was because of his bloodline growing purer or stronger. The number of status points that he could allocate at every single level was tied to his growth rate, which was also tied to his bloodline. As its growth rate increases by a margin, it also increases the unallocated status points gained at every level. On the other hand, as long as anything that was related to his innate ability. Then, those were also influenced by his bloodline as well.

Afterward, he moves Uzi to attack the second zombie. He had thought that it would have the same result as his, but Uzi managed to surprise him. The first attack was completely normal, but on the second attack, he saw that Uzi landed a critical attack on the second zombie. The second zombie's neck was completely turned off like the previous one that he had seen (Uzi, EXP+100, Level Up). [HP+1][SKL+3]

Uzi only needs one more point in the skill stat until it is completely maxed out. Otherwise, he could see that Uzi had blatantly become able to easily land critical attacks. Putting points into the skill stat was the right way to go when trying to land critical attacks. Their turn comes to an end and becomes [Ally's Turn][1].

It was his mother's turn, but there seemed to be no moment on the map and after a few seconds of waiting, it was automatically turned to [Enemy's Turn][1]. There were only three zombies remaining. This would not take long, but he became much more anxious because his mother was not responding on the battlefield. That could only mean one thing: his mother was unconscious or could not do anything else due to traumas. His heart rushed and his blood kept pumping into his veins, but the battle could not fast forward. He did not even know that his body was slightly shaking due to his nervousness.

The third zombie attacked Goon, the bout between the two was naturally done in a quick and simple matter. One attacks the other and the other counter-attacks back. Goon was barely able to deal eighteen damage in total to the third zombie (Goon, EXP+60). Naturally, the fourth zombie had to target Uzi, who was the only one to be within the attack range of the fourth. Uzi did not fare any better than Goon, but because Uzi's innate fang had a five, it might compare to Goon's bone ax, which had four physical might. Uzi still manages to deal with twenty damages in total (Uzi, EXP+80, Level Up). [HP+1][SKL+1][RES+2] He quickly allocates Uzi's points and watches as the fifth zombie stacked behind the third and fourth zombies.

[Player's Turn][2]. Firstly, he knows that Goon could not finish off the third zombie, so he had Uzi attack the third zombie because Uzi can defeat it. As he had expected, Uzi finishes off the third zombie with the exact remaining amount of health points the third zombie currently had. Uzi dealt a total of twenty-two damage to the third zombie (Uzi, EXP+100, Level). [Rank Up! C-B][HP+1][RES+3] Before he even allocated Uzi's stat points, he was surprised by the fact that Uzi's innate weapon mastery reached rank B. Likewise, Uzi's innate weapon also had some minor changes. The details are listed below:

OLD!

[Wolf Claws (Strong): Might +6, Hit +55, Crit +5, Weight=0.1, Durability: N/A]

[Wolf Fangs: Might +5, Hit +95, Crit +10, Weight=0.1, Durability: N/A]

NEW!

[Wolf Claws (Strong): Might +7, Hit +60, Crit +5, Weight=0.1, Durability: N/A]

[Wolf Fangs: Might +6, Hit +100, Crit +12.5, Weight=0.1, Durability: N/A]

The changes were minor unless someone looked closer, but Uzi's innate weapon each had a single increase in might along with an increase of plus five hits. Then there was also the increase in Uzi's wolf fangs critical which had increased by two-decimal-five points. It was not as significant as the first time Uzi's innate weapon transformation as when Uzi's innate weapon mastery had reached rank C. However, this was already a good result and he also had a slight feeling coming from his six senses that Uzi's innate weapon would completely be transformed once the innate weapon mastery had reached rank A. Though slight, the feeling was there.