The Original Beefcake

It was early morning, and the sun had just started to peak over the nearby mountains, when Marcus stepped into the cool morning air. Even in Germany barely anybody was out and about on a Sunday at this time. Still, Marcus wanted to make sure nobody was watching him train. So he decided to go on a warm up run through the forest. He had been running at elevated speed for half an hour and he did not feel any signs of fatigue. He felt full of energy, even after only a few hours of sleep, because he had been far too psyched to stay in bed. The effect of the increased vitality was phenomenal. He had literl superhuman endurance and health now.

Eventually he decided to stop running, if he would go much further he would end up in the neighboring town. Marcus put down the small satchel of goods he had carried on his back, and took a little stretch. His heart beat was slow and regular, as was his breath. The vitality attribute directly governed maximum health, endurance and health regeneration. All very useful things for a class holder and yet, vitality was the single least used attribute on average (according to class-stats-world-wide). The reason for that was quite simple. It was completely defensive and only a few classes had some ability scaling with it.

Imagine you are a mage and have a precious crest to spend. Will you raise your HP and get some minor amount of endurance or will you push up your main attribute to make all your powerful abilities even more insane AND possibly unlock new powers? It is generally seen as one of the major downsides of front line classes that they have to put more points into vitality to survive. This of course also meant that mages and other ranged classes horribly undervalued vitality. If they ever got into trouble they died like flies. Marcus remembered rumors that high level clans and corps actively encouraged their squishy classes to spend a minimum amount of crests on vitality.

Marcus crouched down over his little pack and revealed a one handed axe. This was not a proper combat weapon, but something he had picked up in the local hardware store. It would do for now. He walked to a nearby sturdy tree and weighed the axe in his hand. Every class started with one basic ability, in the case of the Fighter it was 'Heavy Strike', or so they say. Marcus swung the axe back and drove it a second later into the trunk with a big thud. Half of the axe head was buried in the tree.

After freeing it (which took far longer) he raised the axe again and visualized a powerful blow while swinging. Amidst the motion he could feel something happening. His arm and hand felt hot, and when the axe hit the tree a cracking sound disturbed the forest.

The head of the axe had fully vanished inside the tree. The axe hilt had also vanished, at least partially, into his hand. The impact had completely shattered the hilt and pieces of it stuck in his palm. Cursing in German and English Marcus carefully removed the splinters and looked at the damage of his hand. There was little pain and most pieces had not even pierced his skin. The few areas with blood had already stopped bleeding. Vitality's third effect, health regeneration was generally considered useless because you would need massive amounts of vitality to see an effect in the time span of a battle. But Marcus, again, did not believe in that wisdom.

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He stretched his hand a few times. The first test was a success in his book.

Next, he took out a cleaver and the largest kitchen knife he had been able to find. The cleaver suffered the same fate as the axe, but its handle just broke apart. The knife was a different topic. Marcus carefully held it in his hand and considered what he had learned until now. If the handle would fail like before he would ram the blade into his own hand and given the force… he decided to put the knife back into the satchel.

The last item he recovered from the pack was a pair of heavy gloves (extra large of course). As he put them on his eyes fell on his damaged palm. Most of the skin had already completely healed. He swung his fists around a few times, and gave the tree a few good hits, too. Marcus had avoided learning martial arts until now to not bias himself before learning his class abilities, but a jab and a straight was easy enough.

Once more he concentrated to bring out the 'Heavy Strike' and pummeled his right fist into the large tree. He could feel the heat in his arm and hand again and was rewarded with a thunderous impact. At the point of impact the tree bark was blown away and the wood underneath looked deformed and torn. His knuckles also hurt, but it was not as bad as he had feared. "ME SMASH," he shouted into the early morning, followed by a giggle that Frank would have used to tease him for weeks.

This was by far the best result yet and he was not completely surprised by it. The abilities of the classes were not just some hard coded damage numbers. Depending on the skill and understanding of the user the result could vary greatly and Marcus had the hunch that the base ability of the Fighter was not a heavy strike but something more akin to impulse wave. He had gained this idea over the last years by watching and re-watching the few low quality videos of Fighters using it.

More testing was needed! To preserve his fists he started to unleash concentrated straights into the air. He varied his speed, timing and also tried to change his mental image. After two minutes he started to breath heavily and sweat ran down his brow. But he pushed on.

He could feel his endurance draining and he tried to squeeze out one last powered attack but he messed up his motion and his arm flailed widely. "Whoop" There was a sound. There has not been a sound before. Marcus looked at his fist and sat down to catch his breath. What the hell was that?

After five minutes he got up again, loosened the muscles in his shoulders and gave it another try. Another powered punch did not make a sound. He tried flailing again and eventually "whoop". Was it a timing thing between the arm movement and the power release?

He had an idea, instead of a static power release he would try to imagine the heat traveling along his arm as he stretched it out to punch. He took his stance and let his fist fly forward. Marcus imagined a red ball of energy traveling down his arm reaching the knuckles as the arm fully stretched. "Fooomm" There was a loud sound, and a blast of air. "You are kidding me, right?" Marcus laughed.

He looked at his right fist and the front part of the heavy duty glove was gone. This was far beyond his hopes and dreams. Such a result after just one practice session and only with the base crests spent on vitality. Slowly Marcus turned around. "We meet again Mr. Tree."

He carefully took his stance, loosened the muscles in his arm and gauged the distance to the tree trunk. Marcus took a deep breath and as he exhaled drove his fist with all his might into the tree, ramming a glowing orb of make believe red energy into it. The tree trunk exploded, splinters flying everywhere, burying deep into other trees and the ground.

The recoil threw Marcus on his back, while the tree crashed down shattering a few smaller trees on the way. Marcus tried to understand what just happened, but his brain was busy taking a short vacation from reality. A few seconds later pain from his fist finally reached his brain and sharply brought the world back into focus. The glove was gone and he did not need to be a doctor to know his fist was broken. This needs more work, he decided.