Rogue Villain-Chapter 178: Last Stand

Ackster was so disoriented he didn’t know whether he was looking at the sky or the ocean when he woke up. But he had woken up at least. That was a little better than what he feared would happen when he passed out.

However, since he had passed out in the middle of trying to get Last Stand, he wasn’t sure if he had succeeded. Naturally, there was only one thing for him to do. He had to check his Nomi and see if his list of skills had been updated.

[Name: –]

[Profession: (Adventurer)]

[Inventory]

[Stats:

[Strength: B(A)]

[Agility: B(A)]

[Fortitude: B(A)]

[Mana: –]

[Spirit: A]

[Stamina: A]

[Skills:

[Strong Body]

[Pain Tolerance: A]

[Poison Resistance: E]

[Keen Senses: B]

[Iron Stomach: C]

[Strike: A]

[Iron Skin: C]

[Survivalist: D]

[Iron Fists: C]

[Iron Will: A]

[Clear Mind: B]

[Battlesight: B]

[Limit Breaker: D]

[Resilience: B]

[Monster Muncher: E]

[Iron Wall: D]

[Guardian: C]

[Block: D]

[Steel-Boned: E]

[Stubborn Well-Being: E]

[Superficial Martial Arts: E]

[Curse Resistance: G]

[Feather-Footed: C]

[Darksight: G]

[Stalwart Advance: G]

[Last Stand]

[Hemorrhage Resistance: G]

"Fuck yeah."

Ackster closed his eyes and leaned his head back in relief. He had acquired Last Stand. And he hadn’t only gotten Last Stand. He had also acquired Stalwart Advance and Hemorrhage Resistance and ranked up several of his skills that were quite difficult to level up.

Ackster had resolved to try and opt for a safer path of growth and advancement. But it was undeniable that almost dying led to incredible progress.

A simple meditation session, even if it almost killed him, had made Ackster significantly stronger. He couldn’t grow stronger endlessly by repeating something like that, but it was efficient since it hadn’t taken up much of his precious time, and it had granted relatively incredible rewards.

Last Stand aside, the other two skills he had gotten also seemed very useful, especially Hemorrage Resistance. He could tell from the name that it would make it more difficult for him to bleed to death. Well, considering he had Strong Body, Resilience, Survivalist, Stubborn Well-Being, Monster Muncher, and Limit Breaker, all of which did or could do the same, Ackster doubted it would happen anyway. But it was good to have.

He wasn’t sure what Stalwart Advance did or how it worked. But Ackster had a feeling it had to do with how he hadn’t backed down in the face of death, especially now but also back in the Habitat and all the other times he had thrown himself into danger without leaving the option to retreat open.

Regardless of what it was, it was good to have another skill.

Ackster could still feel his body suffering from the side effects of his intense meditation, but he got up without letting it impede his movements.

"Ah..."

As he looked around at the puddle of blood around him and the layer of dried blood on him, Ackster realized why he had gotten Hemorrhage Resistance now when he hadn’t gotten it for any of his earlier injuries. It looked like he had lost more than enough blood to fill a bathtub.

He glanced at the pile of monsters that was significantly smaller than he remembered. He had probably lost more blood than was in his body thanks to his body and skills making more blood for him while he was passed out.

"Thank you, Mio."

Acksetr also noticed an exhausted Mio sitting on the ground next to him. Mio gave a tired salute before Ackster picked them up. Well, he tried to pick them up. Mio held up one tentacle to stop him and another to pinch their imaginary nose.

Ackster took a whiff of himself.

"Got it."

He needed to take a bath and clean himself. Fortunately, there was a decent source of water right next to him.

Ackster stopped right before his feet entered the ocean. Although he had acquired Last Stand, he wasn’t finished yet. After all, learning the skill was only the first part of the plan to stop his overflowing vitality from attracting beasts, monsters, and enemies.

He now had to learn how to control Last Stand with enough delicacy to shave away any overflowing vitality while also not letting the skill run wild and leave permanent damage that could impede his combat ability or future development.

Thankfully, he had the experience of activating Limit Breaker and controlling that skill without reaching his limits. It wasn’t that difficult activating Last Stand without needing to make a Last Stand.

The most difficult part was controlling it and fine-tuning Last Stand so that none of his vitality would leak out when he couldn’t sense his own life force. He didn’t even know how well he was doing. The only thing he could tell was that he had reached a delicate balance between what his body could handle and what would leave lasting damage if he kept Last Stand active.

Fortunately, there was a simple way to test it out now that he was covered in blood. He just had to enter the ocean and let the combination of his blood and vitality attract beasts. Then, he could do it again after cleaning himself to see how much his vitality attracted the beasts. And lastly, he would do it while using Last Stand.

It took Ackster a couple of days to do it since he had to wait for the blood and tumult of each fishing session that used him as bait to calm down before trying again. But eventually, he managed to suppress his vitality to a manageable degree. He was sure it wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough, and he could keep it up for up to a couple of days without too much trouble.

Keeping Last Stand slightly active also gave Ackster a constant, albeit slight, boost to his Stats like Strength, Agility, and Fortitude. He could feel a decrease in his Stamina, though, but that was just good endurance training.

It was almost like a constant state of fight-or-flight with adrenaline coursing through his veins. But it wasn’t as extreme as during life-or-death battles, so Ackster quickly got used to it.

Like that, Ackster quickly made his way to Temir.