Chef in the Apocalypse

Chapter 176: Critical Strike

Jayce began to warm up his body, feeling a sense of anticipation rising from within him. What he was about to attempt could have far reaching consequences, possibly overturning his whole mindset regarding ones strength.

He summoned the Bloodfang Dagger from his inventory and began to wield it deftly. His nimble fingers skill had given him deft motor control of his extremities, allowing him to spin the sharp blade around his fingers with ease.

“I should probably start with my critical strike first.” Jayce mused, activating his stealth ability and melding with the shadows. Seeing as there were no enemies in the vicinity, he chose a large tree as his target. This suited him greatly, as he had started hating trees thanks to his recent experiences.

Instead of diving straight into an attack, he used his senses to detect the flow of his mana within his meridians. If his theory was correct, then the mana would move towards his dagger at the point of landing the critical strike, so he did not want to miss it.

With that, Jayce closed his eyes to prevent any distractions, before lunging out with his dagger and striking the tree with huge force. The sound of wood splintering rang out within the forest, echoing off the other trees in the vicinity.

He was showered with bark and debris from the point of impact, however he was not paying attention.

“Ha haha” Jayce’s face lit up with surprise and triumph and he couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

He clearly felt it. The mana surged towards his arm that was holding the dagger, meeting right at the point of impact and increasing the damage tremendously.

The thing was, he was not the one who had controlled his mana to do so, which meant that the most likely culprit was the system itself. This would also explain when the system registered a spell that he cast, it would automatically channel and even convert the mana into the appropriate element when he used it next.

“Would I be able to recreate the critical strike without the help of the system?” Jayce mused.

Without thinking too much further, he decided to give it a try. There was no point going off on a tangent and making theories if this next step was not possible. He didn’t want to get his hopes up for no reason at all.

Therefore, he wielded the dagger once more, moving to the tree next to the first one so he could compare overall damage. Once again Jayce closed his eyes, however this time he did not just observe, he began to direct his circulating mana towards his right arm, swinging at the tree with all his might.

THUD

The dull thud sounded as the dagger sliced into the tree, however there was no accompanying debris like the first strike. Jayce frowned, before taking his dagger out and checking out the point of impact. As he suspected, it was just like a regular strike, maybe even weaker than usual.

“Did I get the timing wrong?” Jayce scratched his head.

However, he wasn’t discouraged, never expecting to succeed on the first try. If such a thing was so easy, there was no way that someone wouldn’t have already figured this out in his past life. Thus, Jayce continued to slash away at the tree as if he had some kind of grudge against it.

Some of the attacks were weak, and others increased in damage marginally. However, they all shared the same thing in common; They weren’t critical strikes.

Instead of getting frustrated, he decided to once again go into stealth and activate his critical strike. Yet this time, instead of relying on the automatic flow of his mana, he would try and purposefully direct it to his dagger.

Melding into the shadows once more, Jayce poised himself and readied his strike. The mana begun rushing through his pathways like a tidal wave, putting significant pressure on his body.

THWACK!

The tree which had been his cutting board for the past couple of hours suddenly snapped in half, startling him greatly. Thankfully he was nimble enough to avoid the worst case scenario of being crushed by nature.

He was a little surprised. The tree he had chosen was of a similar thickness to the first one he had used critical strike on, yet it had snapped. Of course he had been hacking away at it for the past two hours, but he doubted that it would have caused such a dramatic effect.

Jayce quickly opened his system log, wanting to check if there was anything out of the ordinary.

[10x Critical strike has been activated]

“Holy Shit!” he exclaimed, staring dumbfounded at the writing in front of him. If he wasn’t so dazed he probably would have been jumping around for joy at the current development. If he was honest, Jayce was expecting the Critical strike to have less damage due to his interference, yet that did not happen.

However, he soon calmed down. Just because he had had one success, it did not mean that this was going to work every time. But just knowing that it was possible to augment his physical skills with mana was already worth celebrating.

This gave him an avenue to get stronger without relying on leveling and the system. Something he never would have thought possible in his previous life.

He waited for another minute, trying to envision the mana flow he had used while performing the strike earlier while he waited for the cooldown to finish.

Jayce once again melded into the shadows, finding another tree to continue his experiments on.

[5x Critical strike has been activated]

[6x Critical strike has been activated]

[3x Critical strike has been activated]

[8x Critical strike has been activated]

[12x Critical strike has been activated]

[10x Crit…]

Again and again, Jayce continued to guide his mana into his critical strike, feeling his control of mana and timing get better each time.

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