Terra Nova Online : Rise Of The Strongest Player - Chapter 492

Chapter 492: Jacob’s Progress
( Luke’s POV )

Apart from the leveling progress within the game, Luke also made rapid progression with his body strength once he started to train in the martial arts manual.

After mastering the manual himself, Cervantez passed the book onto Luke who started to train in it regularly.

Within the first week of training itself, Luke felt his body composition improving rapidly as there was a visible improvement in his bulk and peak muscular capacity.

His body had already improved beyond the limits of a mere human when the Arc-Ship entered the rainbow stream, however, the benefits that he was experiencing now pushed his body a cut even above that.

He could now bend steel as if it were rubber, and although he hadn’t yet sparred with anyone in hand-to-hand combat, he felt confident that a suplex would be enough to neutralize any opponent in a fight.

It was as if his entire presence had transformed, and although he remained his usual polite self at work, the way his workers responded to him seemed to have undergone a drastic change.

The workers in Sector E, who once greeted him casually, now seemed to instinctively stiffen and tremble when he arrived.

His mere presence exerted an almost palpable pressure, as though an invisible force weighed down on them.

Conversations would abruptly quiet, and the workers, once relaxed, would address him with a newfound deference—more polite, more cautious, as if they could sense the power he now commanded.

This was all very new for Luke who never intended to abuse his power. However, it was almost like his body was brimming with strength and vitality and his power was only increasing each passing day.

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(Meanwhile Jacob)

After the humiliating defeat to ‘TheBoss’ in Thumba City, Jacob changed his whole approach to gaming.

As a true special operations soldier, he knew that patience was the key to any successful counter operation and he realized that to catch-up to players like ‘TheBoss’, the first thing he needed to do was reduce the level gap.

The speed and strength that ‘TheBoss’ displayed was far above his own and although in-terms of pure technique and experience he was superior to the kid, he could not capitalize on that advantage with his meager speed and below average stats.

Jacob crossed the level 200 threshold by the time the 6 months newbie boost period ended and managed to raise his level to 234 by the time that the next evaluation was 105 days away.

A large contributor to his monster leveling speed was the newbie double exp grace period, however, even without it, his Death Overlord class cheat helped him gain levels faster than what an average player could manage.

At level 234 he managed to enter the top 10,000 player rankings, becoming the first and only player from the New-Batch of players to reach that threshold, earning tonnes of rewards from the system as a result.

Although he was still nearly a 100 levels off from ‘TheBoss’, with his rapid improvement, he set the target to catch the kid in a year’s time.

However, levels was not the only department where he saw massive improvement.

Apart from improving in terms of levels, he also raided a group dungeon called ‘Necromancers Hideout’ as a solo player and managed to explore the depths of his powers as a ‘Death Overlord’.

Once inside that dungeon, he realized that undead monsters instinctively obeyed him and if he wanted to, he could even ask them to fight against each other and gain exp when they died fighting.

Undead Skeletons, Undead Horsemen, Headless Undead Horsemen, Undead Archers, Undead Mages and pretty much any undead monster under the level of a Lich obeyed him when he was in his [Undead Transformation] form, while they reflexively hesitated from attacking him when he was in his normal human form.

Of-course there were limits to his powers as his [Undead-Transformation] form did not last very long, however, having understood those limits and how his class worked still helped him improve massively as a player as he seemed to get a grip on how the Terra Nova Online world worked.

To his joy, he obtained the [Necromancer’s Ring] from the dungeon, a rare item drop that only dropped in 1/1000 dungeon runs, which could summon 2-12 undead skeletons every hour.

Equipped with that ring, Jacob found a new dimension to his gaming, as having extra bodies to order around helped him massively as a solo player.

Finally and probably most importantly, he joined an adventurer group where only military veterans could join, and although it was not an official guild, but more like a mercenary group, joining that group brought Jacob massive benefits.

Firstly, he got to meet and chat with like minded military officials who understood the importance of respect and discipline, and secondly he got access to mission requests which other veterans posted, and got to join them on tough adventures.

Not only did he get to pick and choose missions to tag along, but he also got intel about the game world and hidden developments in a proper military format, that benefited him greatly.

From time to time he would join small adventurer squad units and get paid in gold, while other times he would recruit their help in exterminating bandits and other anti-social forces, which would yield both exp and fame.

His final goal still remained that of destroying the rebel movement and taking his revenge on ‘TheBoss’, for his humiliating defeat, however, he got to have tons of fun along the way, in what was a perfect retirement life in his mind.

He had little to no work in the Sector A of the arc ship, and could spend most of his time lazing around with Elena.

And once those heartwarming moments were over, he could become a crazed killer in the world of Terra Nova, adventuring with other veterans in what was an ideal life that he could only have dreamt of on Earth.