Return of the Woodcutter
Chapter 137 - Dawn At Last (part 1)

"Ahahaha! That's freaking awesome!" Allan said, floating from above the city, following after Aito's trail who just entered a main street next to the cathedral, apparently heading towards the city border at full speed. 

Suddenly, Aito smashed into a wall, forcefully entering a four stories building. Hobs followed him inside. Soon he exited the ground floor by smashing another wall, entering the neighboring building. 

"What a brute!" Allan commented, when a resounding explosion obliterated the previous building's foundation, crumbling the whole place. 

The hobs that were following Aito from the rooftop fell with the building, crushing the surrounding hobgoblins. 

"OOOOH! Is that a skill!?" He said, widened eyes, unaware that Aito had used a boom ball. "Ahaha! Nice, nice, nice! Show me more!" 

It wasn't that Allan had never seen anything of the sort; it was just that coming from a challenger. It was impressive. 

"No… not a challenger," Allan said, watching yet another building crumbling. "An Ascender."

Apart from opening oneself to the immaterial world and start to feel like with one's Domain, there was one other requirement to become an Ascender. 

The second requirement was accumulating enough souls and mana necessary for the body transformation, but also the creation of what was called the First Circle. 

The First Circle was the result of the overflowing energy that had been forced to accumulate to the brim. 

To avoid wasting most of it, Ascenders would have to synchronize with their soul, ordering it to create a small auxiliary core that would orbit around the main one so fast it appeared to be a circle. Much like an electron does around an atom core—according to earthly classical physics.

But that required a lot of accumulated and digested energies, something a level 1 soul core shouldn't be able to produce. Well, there were ways to cheat the system. 

Although Allan didn't know exactly how Aito had made it happen, he could guess it was related to the process of leveling up. 

Supposedly, a soul couldn't digest energies too rapidly. It required time to do so and transform the foreign energies into one's own. 

Why? Because foreign souls did not want to be eaten and always resisted the suction force. Allan found it weird how fast Aito had digested souls. 

"Whatever, it makes for a good show and a powerful Ascender. With a First Circle at… actually I don't know how to grade his level right now… but it'll surely be tough for ordinary level 3 Ascenders to contend against him. Also… how did he synchronize so fast?" Allan asked

Synchronizing with one soul wasn't necessarily easy. Establishing a perfect link first required a common ground, a common ideal that resonated with soul and body so strongly it would increase the link to perfection. Thus, linking the material and immaterial world. 

That kind of link could give surprising results. For example, depending on one's desire, need, state of mind, and capabilities, it could give birth to a new skill. It was an uncommon way to make one, though. 

Anyway, it was the First Circle that allowed a drastic physical change in a mortal's body and also provided more energy for skills.

"Still… that ridiculous strength isn't normal," Allan said, watching Aito brute force his way through a fourth building with thicker walls than the others. And like the others, it crumbled with an explosion. 

When challengers became Ascenders, they couldn't be considered real mortals in the sense that they had taken a small step towards becoming something much more. 

Ascenders were even referred to by the System as High Humans or High whatever race the living being was.

Being able to start to feel the immaterial world brought some benefits, opening numerous possibilities and myriads of paths to power.

Ascenders would be able to feel the other souls surrounding them by spreading their Domains. Each soul emitted a particular wavelength like a beating heart. The stronger the wavelength the stronger the person—it was possible to hide it, though.

Although the system defined it as a skill, Allan saw it as an innate ability. To use his words, it could come with more "neat stuff" than just detecting people in the surroundings when reaching higher levels. 

A Domain could grow larger as one's soul gained more power. Eventually, if the person survived long enough, and was capable, it became something more.

Also, after the Ascension, one's understanding of mana and soul force would naturally deepen, almost always leading to a skill level up. 

To his knowledge, and according to the historical records, only a handful of people had been able to control their souls to manifest their First Circle before level 3. 

"Which means that guy has the potential to at least reach the Transcendent Realm," Allan said, then frowned when he saw yet again something intriguing. "Ahahaha! Maybe Legend isn't out of his reach! Truly a night full of surprise." 

Down there, Aito smashed a wall shoulder first, exiting a building, and went back into the main street. He could still use five boom balls, but wanted to save those for later floors. Those explosives could come handy in a lot of precarious situations. 

He looked behind him. Hobs were still pursuing him. Lots of them. Aito continued down the road, heading for the city's border, when suddenly, a surge of power coursed through him. 

—Unique Passive Skill: One Against Many (>1000)—

Around four to five hundred meters away from his allies, his passive skill finally activated. 

Transparent undulating waves covered his body distorting the very air around him, as some kind of unknown surrounding energy entered him.

While previously running from the horde with Fury boosting his strength, he had managed to control his speed, slowing down so that he wouldn't lose them. 

But this time, when his foot touched the ground, it propelled him so fast that, despite having expected it, he inelegantly tripped, destroying the cobblestone road. 

'So much power…,' he thought. With more than a thousand opponents following him, his stats had skyrocketed past their limits, increasing by one entire level. 

There was a high probability that—now with a level 6 strength—his grip alone would have bent his steel weapon were it not coated with Durability. 

Lagging behind, hobs rushed at him at full speed. To the current him, they appeared a bit slow. Too slow. 

Unwilling to waste this opportunity, he wanted to try experimenting with his temporary increased stats and the new possibilities it opened to him.

'Since that's the case…' 

Aito's hand dug the ground, forcefully picking some stones that paved the road, crushed them, reducing most of the content to pebbles, and, applying Durability, hurled them towards the incoming enemies while increasing their weights. 

At least that's what he tried to do, but his control over Weight Control was still lacking and only a quarter of the pebbles weighed eight times their original weight. Durability also coated three-quarter of them. However, it remained deadly. 

Dozens of pebbles pierced the air almost as fast as bullets, showering the horde with destruction and death. Bringing down more than twenty hobs with that single improvised attack, an evil grin crept its way up Aito's face as he decided to call that move a pebble-shotgun.

'Haha! What about an entire rock?'