Chapter 228 Upgrading the shadow Once the system had confirmed to Quinn that he had learned Phantom Punch, everything got a lot easier from then onwards. Instead of concentrating on the feeling like he did before, now all he had to do was think about the skill, and his mind would automatically do the work for him. It was one of the other perks of having the system. No longer would he fail sometimes when trying to create the punch, it would now work a hundred percent of the time. this was the same as when he learnt the crescent blood kick as well. This didn’t mean it would work successfully on his opponent a hundred percent of the time though. It was just that he was now able to perform the skill successfully every time. In the next matches Quinn played, while using the skill he had learnt quite a bit about how the skill worked. Just like the system had said, there were some opponents the skill was less effective against, Quinn couldn’t figure out why as it didn;t seem to be linked with the user’s ability level. Most likely it was more to do with their mental ability. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢 For some of the opponents he faced, It seemed like they were only partly tricked. On their end, they would see the phantom punch, but it would disappear before it would make contact. While for those with weaker minds, it felt like they could actually feel the phantom punch hitting them. Still, even a slight phantom image gave Quinn a huge advantage. The constant use of the punches, on top of his speed, made his opponents feel like they were fighting against someone with extra hands. He now understood why the blonde man had said the skill would improve as he improved both his agility stat, along with his charm stat. [180/400 exp] After defeating the five opponents, Quinn had obtained ten experience points from each of them. It wasn’t his goal, but a bonus along the way of learning the new skill. He also continued to get the ten points for completing his daily quests, drinking the two litres of water daily along with avoiding the sun for eight hours. But still, out of everything so far, the quickest way to level up was defeating Beasts. Quinn would definitely need to use this to his advantage when fighting on the other planet. There was also the chance for him to level up even quicker since the system had stated that when fighting along with Peter, he would gain the experience of Peter’s kills as well. With the hours of practice and the many matches Quinn had played, he didn’t realise the time and the VR pod machines had been shut off. They usually turned off an hour before the curfew time and the disconnection of him form the game was a clear sign. As Quinn headed back to his room, and with one day remaining before the portal outing, he started to think what would be the next best step on trying to get stronger. In his mind, Quinn split up his skills into four different categories. He had his blood abilities, such as Blood Swipe, Blood Spray, Blood Bank and so on. These skills could be upgraded by using them multiple times. He then had his charm skills. Daze, Influence, and now, Phantom Punch. The next section he counted was his fighting skills, such as Flash Step, Hammer Strike, as well as Blood Hammer and Phantom Punch. Although the last two skills where a combination of the other sections. Finally though, were his ability skills. The shadow skills. After looking at all his different skills, Quinn decided to focus on the shadow skills. There were currently still four shadow skills greyed out in the system that required him to use skill points to unlock. The only way Quinn knew of to get skill points, was to upgrade the level of his current shadow skills. To do this, it worked the same way as his blood skills. The more he used them, eventually, it would level up. This was the best option for Quinn while in the game. The next day had arrived, and as the group agreed, everyone was currently doing their own thing. Everyone was kind of pleased that they had decided to do this. At first, Quinn was a little bit worried about Peter. But when he asked what Peter was planning to do, Peter was already heading off to Logan’s room with a bunch of sandwiches held in his arms. It seemed like the two were getting on well enough that Quinn no longer needed to use his blood. While heading to the game room, he noticed Fex had decided to come along as well. There wasn’t much for him to do in the game after all. When Quinn entered the game, he decided to watch a couple of Fex’s matches. It came to surprise that Fex seemed was playing online rather than using the private server. Because just like Quinn, they were both unable to use thier abilities inside the game. After watching a couple of games, he could see that Fex was able to beat his opponents without using his blood skills, or string abilities. He purely used his body and martial arts to overpower his opponents. During the second match, Fex had meant someone quite skilfully and for the second time, Quinn had seen him use an improvement of the martial arts that were taught to him. the first time was during the match against Leo. Seeing this just reminded Quinn again that he needed to get stronger. Quinn backed out of the game and joined the private server where he was able to use his shadow abilities freely. [Shadow Void] The first thing Quinn activated was Shadow Void. Soon, the room, instead of white, was now covered in purple shifting shadows above. Quinn planned to level up his level 1 shadow skills first. Since they were lower levels, they would take less use to level up. Currently, the shadow skills that were level 1 were. Shadow Control and Shadow Void. For each level up of a skill, Quinn gained ten stat points. Right now, he was aiming for the skill in his system that cost the most amount of skill points. The skill known as Shadow Eater, costing a total of fifty points. He repeated the process of activating the skills as many times as he could, and due to it being in the game and the lobby, he didn’t run out of MC points. Eventually, Shadow Void levelled up to level 2. Quinn could now decide how big the shadow void created was, and depending on its size, it would either cost far more or far fewer points. The other skills that levelled up were his Shadow Cloak, which was now level 3, along with his Shadow Equip, which was level 3 as well. The time used to cast these skills were incredibly fast and it seemed like the cloak skill now used more shadows to hide him, making it even harder for him to be seen by those with good perception. Unfortunately, the only skill that hadn’t levelled up for him was his Shadow Control skill, the most useful and powerful skill in his arsenal. The skill allowed him to combine it with his Blood Swipe, as well as block incoming attacks. But it seemed like a skill that only had its use when used against an opponent, and unfortunately, Quinn was unable to use the shadow abilities in the game. There was some good news though. When levelling up the skill from level 2 to level three, the number of skill points given to him increased. Instead of ten per level up, he was given fifteen, giving him a total of thirty skill points. But it still wasn’t enough for him to unlock the skill Shadow Eater. The day had come to an end, and Quinn would just have to be satisfied with improving his current shadow skills and learning the Phantom Punch for now. Finally, the day had arrived. It was the weekend and all the first-year students were told to gather inside the portal room once again. It was time to go through the orange portal. **** Want another mass release? Then remember to vote with your stones below. The stone goals are in the authors note. For MVS artwork, follow me on Instagram: jksmanga