Reborn: Apocalypse

"…♪ It's the eye of the tiger ♪…"

"…♪ It's the thrill of the fight ♪…"

Micheal hummed along to the music, playing off the magical Record Player he'd purchased from the Shop as he held himself up in a handstand.

The music was set to play at a low volume, purchased from the Shop for cheap. While he was concerned with getting a large number of Points, it only cost a couple of regular Morenkai kills to get the record, a luxury he would allow.

After he raised his body up, he then slowly lowered his body till his face was just an inch off the ground, tightening his core muscles and arms as he maintained the handstand, his legs pointed to the ceiling.

"47…" He raised his arms back up, pushing his body back into the air. A bead of sweat dripped from his forehead, falling to the floor.

"48." He continued to push his body to the limit as he exercised.

"…"

He was currently in the middle of a small room he had claimed for himself, working out. Early morning daylight filtered in through a window, the bright gleaming of dawn peeking through the various skyscrapers to land on his window.

"98… 99… 100!" As he finished his 100th handstand push up, he slowly lowered his legs to the ground, feeling the burn in his core. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he got up, shaking his arms. His breathing was a bit ragged, winded from the sheer effort.

"Alright, all done!" His eyes flashed as he smiled, taking several deep breaths. Handstand pushups were the last set of movements he did for his morning exercise routine. This particular movement worked out almost his entire body as he kept himself balanced and tense up in the air.

Now that his physical condition had improved by such a large amount, he felt it fitting to get back into exercising. It was a good way to keep his body limber and ready to face the day.

A few minutes passed as he took a shower and got prepared, eating a quick breakfast and getting hydrated after he put away the record player.

It was now day 7 of his time here on the First Layer.

Time had started to fly by after he met Sophia. His life had become far more secretive as he and she moved about carefully, not directly revealing their presence. Right now, Micheal had the element of surprise on his side, and that wasn't something he wanted to lose.

Their hunting had gone very well. In total, they had found 5 Golden Morenkai, a huge sum to discover in only 3-4 days when they were working on their own. The lack of people hunting down Golden Morenkai like them meant there was a decently large number of them still alive.

Researchers from his first life had determined that each Cluster magically produced a large number of regular Morenkai every day, though exactly how they were produced was still unknown. The exact number varied, and usually was magically balanced to make each Cluster have a very large number of Morenkai, but not so large that they were swarming everywhere.


It was almost as if the First Layer was self-aware, helping to moderate each Cluster. The 7 Layers were truly quite mysterious.

Of those Morenkai that were produced, there was a very small chance for an Abnormal to appear, and an even smaller chance for a Golden Morenkai to appear. This rate usually averaged to around 3-4 Golden Morenkai a week per Cluster.

Morenkai were not immortal. Eventually, even if they were never attacked, they would die. Their lifespans were quite short. If no one killed a Golden Morenkai that spawned, it would eventually die within a month, its Points going to waste.

They also hadn't encountered any other major forces or teams, avoiding almost all human contact as if they were social recluses.

'Status.' He called to mind his status after he finished eating and getting dressed, sitting on his bed in meditation. He exercised in the morning and cultivated in the evening, the routine he had decided to set.

.

— - Status — -

Name: Micheal Care

Points: 39,071

Race: Human *

Age: 18

- Stats -

Strength - 31 -> 40

Endurance - 24 -> 28

Recovery - 22 -> 26

Soul - 10

Abilities - (3/7)

Life Orb Master

Ki Cultivator (Mortal Tier - Middle)

Grandmaster Sword Mastery (1/5)

.

'Not bad.' He smiled as he looked over it.

After imbibing the last 2 sets of Dragon Building Liquid, not only had his stats increased slightly, he had finally received the important upgrade from it.

He tapped on the star that could be seen next to his Race. Immediately, the star changed to read:

.

Race: Human - 1 Star Physique

.

He had upgraded his Physique to 1 Star.

The Physique of a being had a large impact on how powerful that being was. One's Physique helped influence how powerful you could grow to be, how high your stats could become, and how quickly you could grow them and cultivate.

It could be seen as the 'Talent' or 'Potential' of a Race to grow stronger.

Other Races had a variety of Physiques, the biggest reason why they were stronger than humanity. The God Races all had 5 Star Physiques, often with unique effects, and the elites among the Gods even had legendary 6 Star or 7 Star Physiques.

Almost all Races had a form of 'Ki Cultivation,' one of the few universal Abilities shared between Races.

The Human Race did not even qualify to have a 1 Star Physique originally. The only reason they could compete at all was because of the unique power inborn to all humans in the 7 Layers, the Shop.

In his first run, Micheal's Physique had also remained at 0 or no Stars. This was largely because of the Type Ability he had picked. The Ironblood Body Type.

This Ability was very powerful, boosting his strength by an incredible 50% and granting him a ton of stamina and endurance, perfect for someone obsessed with training like him.

However, it also transformed his body and blood permanently, one of the Type Abilities that didn't allow for further modifications. Despite the change and increases from the Type Ability, his Physique had remained the same, and so did his talent.

This time around, however… Micheal had no plans on repeating that.

'While a 1 Star Physique isn't much, I can already feel the effects of it. It's too bad the Dragon Building Liquid is too low level. The Physique isn't even a unique named one.' Over the past few days, his cultivation every night had become even smoother and faster. He had already broken through to the Middle Stage of the Mortal Tier of Ki Cultivation and was making progress on reaching the Late Stage.

He held his fist out in front of him, clenching it.

'The strength of four men...' He could feel the power rippling inside him. If he were to fight against Pirate Lord Brandon again…

'No, it would probably end up the same, haha.' He smiled ruefully. He wasn't strong enough to compete with A Rankers directly yet.

'But I might not've ended up so miserable.' With his increased stats, he would've been able to dodge faster and move more precisely. While it wouldn't have bridged the gap between them, it would've made it easier to trick the Pirate Lord.

With those thoughts in mind, he finished preparing, grabbing one last thing.

A large, grey backpack that he strapped to his back.

After that, he left his room, walking out into a dimly lit hallway.

He glanced each way, checking for stray people or Morenkai. He always listened at the door before he left to be safe, but it never hurt to double check. There were Abilities that deadened sound.

He moved down the hallway, his eyes alert. Eventually, he found himself in front of one of the other doorways. He knocked on it in a specific pattern.

After a moment, the door opened up, revealing the figure of Sophia. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and brown boots, and a tight white t-shirt. Her short brown hair swirled as she gave him a winning smile.

"Good morning!" After three days, she had become much more friendly with him. Their teamwork together, coupled with his honesty, had seen results.

"Heyo, Sophia!" He smiled back,

"How well did you absorb the third set?" He queried.

After they escaped the Pirate Lord Brandon and rested, Micheal had directly told Sophia about the Dragon Building Liquid, and how it could improve her physical condition, enacting her talent when it came to cultivation and growing stronger.

If she was to be one of his allies, there was no reason to not help her grow as quickly as possible. She would need to keep up.

"It's been fully absorbed! I can feel the changes already, it's crazy how much its upped my Strength!" Sophia replied, her voice excited. Her cheeks were flushed as she spoke.

With three sets of the Dragon Building Liquid absorbed, she only needed one more set to get the full transformation and enhance her Physique.

'When I reveal the secret about hunting the Golden Morenkai, I'll reveal the details on Dragon Building Liquid with instructions on how regular people can make use of it.' He mentally decided as he nodded his head. Even small changes like this would have a huge effect when taken at a grand scale.

"Alright, let's get the fourth set done right now, before we leave. After that, we're going to take a detour from hunting today." He added,

"We're going to check out the Stardust Open Market." He tapped on the backpack he had strapped to his back.

It was a special tool he had purchased from the Shop, a Spatial Backpack. Unlike Spatial Rings, Spatial Backpacks were heavy and clunky. A Spatial Ring would magically store anything, depending on size, and make it weightless. A Spatial Backpack could magically store large amounts of anything, but it would only reduce the weight by around 90-95%.

In the backpack he had on his back, he had stored 7 Abnormal Morenkai corpses, all interesting ones that they'd run into while hunting.

The backpack weighed roughly 250 pounds (113 kg), annoyingly heavy even with his enhanced strength. Still, it was a far better solution than trying to cram them all into a Low-Tier Spatial Ring.

'If only Spatial Rings didn't interfere with each other.' He grumbled mentally.

Keeping more than one Spatial Ring near another Spatial Ring for more than a few minutes could cause the Artifact to function oddly, even possibly causing the ring to cease functioning. He had learned this lesson the hard way back in his first run.

"Sounds good to me. I almost have half the Points to purchase the Ability I was looking at, the Wind Sweeper Ability. Maybe I can find something there that will make our Points gain quicker." Sophia nodded, her fists clenched, her eyes full of emotion.

'Ah, she did have that Ability when she was the Demon Fairy. That's the same.' It was a power that cost 86,000 Points and vastly enhanced the mobility of its user, allowing them to manipulate the wind to a small degree. They could jump or glide on the wind, using it to speed themselves up or outmaneuver their enemies.

'Hmm, I don't believe it's a permanent Ability, and it matches well with her combat style. I don't need to micromanage her choices here.' He nodded.

"I'm about 6,000 Points off from the Ability I'm eyeing. If we can find some useful Artifacts, it indeed might be able to speed our progress up." He replied, eyeing her. After a moment, he added another line,

"After we check it out, I thought we might drop by the Godfather Organization. We can ask about your little sister and see if they have any records of her." He also intended to warn them of the actions of the Black Flag Pirates, now that they had some strength to back themselves up a bit. He would kill one bird with two stones.

When Sophia heard this, she looked at Micheal, her eyes watering.

"Thank you." She reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it.

Micheal simply smiled and patted her on the head,

"Don't get your hopes up too high yet, Sofa, it's just a preliminary check. We will keep looking in the future, if they have nothing. Let's go check the Open Market first!"

Sophia nodded, controlling herself. After a moment, she paused, blinking in confusion.

"Sofa?"

"What? It's a nickname." Micheal grinned shamelessly.

After gaining an ally to work with the past few days, he had started to fall back into his old groove, working on improving and enjoying life. He valued the moments of levity he could squeeze in, knowing his mission was one that would last years.

"You gave me the nickname of… Sofa? Like… a couch?" She held her hands out to the side in exasperation.

"Quick! Get ready to absorb the last set of Dragon Building Liquid, no time to delay!" He ran away.

.

.

Next chapter Sunday, a 1-day break on Monday when I drive home, and then we are back to daily updates! :D

.