Chapter 48 - Hunt For Control Points (1)

"See! That wasn't hard was it?" Zok yawned as the others were done fortifying the cave which would now be serving as a safe space for them, "I knew your abilities would make it easy. Haha! But it looks like you people have no stamina. Why do all of you look so tired only after working for... the morning?"

Cero grunted angrily at Zok. Kaira and Shira did the same. How could he ask such an inhuman question to them? They were working for hours while he was taking a blissful nap. Their abilities might have been overpowered, but the cost of continuously using them was taxing as well.

However, their hard work had paid off. Their cave was now much secure than it had been before. The entrance was completely blocked with a constricted space allowing them to enter. Even that narrow path had been laced with vines so that no one would be able to break through them while they were out hunting or doing some other things.

But on top of all that, the narrow path between the gigantic stones would serve two purposes. Firstly, the sturdy walls will not allow large beasts to pass through and enter the cave. Thus removing the possibility of worrying about rogue beasts.

And secondly, even if some creatures or Occunians were able to pass through it, there was only enough place for one of them to enter at one point in time. This would give Zok and others enough time to prepare an attack and shred their enemies one at a time, no matter how big the enemy forces were. This was an excellent defence technique when facing overwhelming odds.

However, the same could happen to them as well. After discovering their plan, the enemies would probably try to lure them out and do the same to them. On top of that, unlike the enemies who were outside and could gather any resource they wanted to from the wilderness, Zok and his party cannot stay inside the cave indefinitely. Sooner or later they would need to come out of the cave to gather food and water and, the enemies could attack them when they did.

Thankfully, Zok had already made a plan to counter that as well. Shira's ability could easily throw the enemies into chaos and they could make an escape if they needed to. Not only that, her ability to be able to converse with plants essentially made all of the flora found in the Glade their ally. As soon as someone entered the glades, Shira would get to know about it and thus it would give enough time for them to decide whether they would fight or flee.

Another defence they had were the deadly beasts of the glades. Only fools would travel into the glades with large groups. Why? Because the more people they moved with, the more attention they'll get from the beasts. Although the beasts were primarily herbivores and generally minded their own business, they were extremely protective of their kin as well as their territory.

Since a large group of people would need resources from the Glades to sustain themselves, they would definitely clash with the beasts and thus that would cause them to rush out of the Glades.

"It might not be perfect but it's damn good." Zok jumped down from the boulder he was sleeping on, "Well, I guess you people are hungry... so here you go!"

Zok opened his inventory and gave each of them the food they liked. For Kaira it was raw Cerotidae meat, it was the same for Shira but the meat Zok gave her had been thoroughly roasted last night and stored in his inventory. As for Cero, Zok gave him a bunch of herbs that he had gotten from the elderly traveller he had saved near the checkpoint. All three of them immediately jumped at the food as they hadn't eaten anything since the suns were up.

In the meantime, Zok opened up his status board and began going through it. He wanted to see if there were any useful abilities that he could learn. The only ability that he could learn was the one he got after taming Cero.

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[Berserker's Charge lvl 5]: This skill allows the user to charge for 5 meters in a certain direction. Enemies hit during the charge suffer physical damage up to 100 (+70% of users strength) and get stunned for 1.2 seconds. Once this ability is activated, the user can not change direction until the charge is completed.

Higher-level perks will unlock as the skill and the user level up.

The skill will level up once it had been used a certain number of times.

Due to the effect of the title: [Sofina's Ally] the cost of learning the skill has been reduced by 20%.

Cost: 25 ---> 20 Control points.

Balance: 1.75 Control points.

Do you want to use unallocated stat points to learn the skill?

Unallocated Skill points: 20

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'I still need to find a suitable beast who would give me Control points for killing it...' Zok sighed and laid back on the ground.

Even with Sofina's blessing, the cost of learning the skill was quite high. Zok still had 20 points which would give him 40 control points, but he didn't want to use them. He couldn't depend on his points to help him out forever, as levelling up was slowly getting harder for him thanks to the abnormal amount of EXP he needed to even level up once.

In other words, as he would level up, earning unallocated points would get more and more difficult. Thus, he had to be careful with his expenditure. But then again, he didn't need the points for anything else other than increasing his Control stat.

'Killing the beasts here should give me enough points to level up my other stats... but, if it wasn't for these stat points, Cero would have run me over while I was trying to tame him... It's decided then.' Zok got up all of a sudden and started stretching his muscles, 'I'll have to hunt some beasts and only learn the skill once I have gathered enough points to do so.. While I'll save the unallocated points for dire situations.'