"Ugh..."
Slade groaned as pain racked his body straight from the bones all the way to the muscles.
Coughing out blood from the slight internal bleeding, Slade dizzyingly shook his head to ward off the strange sights swirling in his eyes.
Ignoring the fractals which swirled in front of his eyes due to the brain trying to make what wasn't there exist, Slade slowly got up from one knee and pushed through the pain.
That didn't mean it wasn't there anymore of course.
Blinking away the fractals, a red orb harmlessly floating off the surface of the ground bobbed up and down above the place where the Golden enemy had fallen.
Something that Slade recognized to be a healing orb for, well, healing.
Dragging his wounded body straight towards the red orb floating off the ground, Slade didn't wait a second moment as his body moved with instinct.
Reaching out, the moment his finger touched the orb a subtle pleasure shivered throughout his body as warm energy visibly healed all of his wounds.
Miraculously enough, it seemed the blood that he had shed had also disappeared.
Something he was very grateful about as he recalled how uncomfortable dried blood was on the bare body.
Resting on the ground, Slade was subject to the extremely conflicting feeling of his flesh and bone being knit together.
If he had to liken the experience it was like an unscratchable itch was crawling all over his body?
But when he recovered fully and wasn't bleeding out anymore due to magical healing orbs, he groaned in relief at the discomforting feeling disappearing.
"Ugh, don't want to experience that feeling again."
Groaning in relief when the incredible uncomfortable feeling plaguing his body disappeared, Slade moved his body with limberness.
It still hurt like hell though.
Having those thoughts as phantom pain covered his body, Slade moved forwards.
'...'
Suddenly feeling angry for reasons he forgot, Slade suddenly kicked at a barrel and smashed the wooden barrel into several small wooden planks.
Perhaps it was already incredibly weak due to rot or something of the like but it fell apart rather quickly when Slade exerted force on the innocent barrel.
Something he didn't really care about now that his anger had been mysteriously sated.
'...Now that's done.'
Putting his shield and sword onto his back he caught a glint of light reflecting off of something from the corner of his eye.
"Hmm?"
Pausing in place for a moment as he was all set to move out of the room, Slade turned back and looked at the destroyed barrel.
Stepping towards the barrel, he held his sword by the sheath and poked through the wooden debris.
And wouldn't you know it?
[Reptilian Cloth Tunic]
Framed by a blue background, the piece of armor which was the same as the one Slade wore currently appeared from within the debris.
[Primary]
[Regenerates one life per second]
'Well that's rather useful.'
Taking hold of the tunic, Slade awkwardly opened up his system and stared at the equipment interface.
And almost immediately as he did so, he ran into a problem.
'...How do I do this?'
As someone who grew up in the 20th century, he wasn't all that unfamiliar with equipment, equipping and unequipping,
The problem was that he had seen all of these things be done from a technological interface and with a few clicks of the mouse those things would be done automatically.
But now that he was in reality, Slade felt slightly confused.
Staring at the piece of armor in his hands, he glanced between himself and the armor piece before placing it against his chest.
And after an awkward moment of nothing happening, Slade coughed to himself and stared at the equipment interface.
For some reason he felt embarrassed, but right now he just needed to find out a basic necessity that would most definitely become an integral part of his power in the future.
Better to learn how to walk before trying to run.
In this case, it was better to learn how to equip things instead of putting it on manually...
It felt like those things were supposed to be reversed but nevertheless, Slade had to do a few experiments while fiddling with his inventory to find out what it was he was to do.
It was a rather simple and familiar set up.
The inventory consisted of several grid like spaces, and those spaces were occupied with pieces of equipment that took up a certain amount of those spaces.
And by moving his finger across the interface, he was able to drag the items within those slots to other ones, rotating them all he liked.
It was like an extremely convoluted puzzle game you had to play if you decided you wanted to place another item into the inventory but there wasn't enough connecting spaces.
The only difference here was that the item in his hand currently wasn't be counted as something within the inventory.
Something that only occurred when he brought the tunic to the inventory and had it sucked up with a white light.
'Does this mean I can...'
In Diablo III levels although important as the stats they granted were indeed powerful and influenced various stat scaling items alongside how they basically granted new skills each level up.
Equipment was even more important.
Good equipment meant that you could basically fight above your level and turn a majority of the stronger mobs into a meaty paste.
It also was a definite must as most skills that he would acquire in the future also needed equipment of certain qualities.
The fact that a proper mixture of skills and equipment could exponentially increase one's strength wasn't hidden from his memory either.
And if he recalled, he rather favored the incredibly destructive attacks that would clear out large crowds of enemies in quick order.
Nevertheless, when he moved his finger around and equipped his items, he saw how strange it was to equip a different item.
It was one thing to change weapons wince it was an item that he held, it was another to change armor sets since it was quite literally appearing over his chest.
Or in this case replacing the one already on his chest.
Staring at the blue backgrounded piece of armor that looked indiscernible from his previous one, Slade shook his head and moved up the stairs.
As he was doing so, he stared at the bottom of the interface which showed a small bar that was on the verge of passing to the next level.
'If I recall correctly.'
Waving his hand, as he moved up the stairs the skills screen appeared in front of him.
Sifting through the screen, only three different things were in front of him.
A primary skill bar, a secondary skill bar and various locked icons hidden behind a darkened icon and metal chains.
It felt strange seeing the chains in front of him as if they were physical yet at the same time not, so he didn't focus his mind on it.
Exiting through the opened doorway, Slade was briefly surprised when he saw the small horde of undead in front of him, slowly circling the front of the house.
And at the same time that he saw them, they saw him.
Instinctually slamming his shield out and stabbing the blade straight through the vulnerable vertebrae located at the base of the neck.
A golden light surrounded his body as he felt more strength flow through his limbs.
Following that, a grand pillar of light fell from the heavens and slammed into the undead, preventing them even the chance to scream.
Staring at the ashes that were once the undead at the front of the house, Slade popped his lips in response and just moved on with life.
When faced with something absurd that had just happened without reason, it was the best course of action to just ignore it.
But in this case since it wasn't something that didn't happen without reason, Slade just ignored the event due to how absurd that it had just been.
Bringing up the skill screen in front of him, he tapped on the primary skill slot revealing a scroll wheel with only two things being unlocked as was seen by the color that they held.
And as he glanced at the art of the other greyed out skills, he noted that he received his stats in the form of words.
Something he would've forgotten about if he didn't read them.
But then again.
[You have gained 3 Strength]
[You have gained 1 Dexterity]
[You have gained 1 Intelligence]
[You have gained 2 Vitality]
With these new stats depicting their respective names in order and the fact that as someone who used his body a lot in the field.
He had to be incredibly knowledgeable about the state of his body for the highest cost effectiveness in battle.
In this case, this meant that his experience came in handy in the fact that it allowed himself to feel the distinct change in physicality his body seemingly went through without rhyme or reason.
But ignoring the fact that he was acutely aware of the change that had happened in his body and the fact that he would have to do various exercises to get used to it.
He stared at the scroll wheel.
Or more accurately.
He stared at the new skill that had appeared in the skill wheel.
+++
Hello there, trying to do daily uploads, but if it doesn't work I'll at least try to upload every two days.
And the lore that this game has is not doing well for my sleeping schedule, its a bit addicting to learn.
Tree