Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

For the next ten minutes Adam absolutely beat the shit out of her, even though he was only dealing small injuries to her Louisa had to heal her multiple times.

Even though Adam only had the fighting prowess of someone who opened the Gate of Healing, he was at the very peak of that realm, and only someone who opened the Gate of Limits would be able to beat him with similar stats.

That being said, that was only if he fought an expert one on one. Against crowds, the senses of someone who opened the Gate of Opening would best him, and so even though he was beating Jude here, if they were to be placed in a crowd of monsters she would have more chances than him to survive. Back to the battle of Rosewatch, he had been able to fight in the midst of the monsters because his attributes were way higher, but the others who survived all had survived thanks to their enhanced senses that allowed them to dodge most attacks.

Compared to him in a one on one though, the experts from the First Tier Guilds were still weaker, including King Slayer, and Jude was even weaker than them as she just opened her Gate of Opening.

However, because the Gate of Opening was related to the brain, the short period of time after opening it actually had the brain into a hyper stimulated stage too, and this resulted in a higher learning capacity for a short while.

Jude was especially grateful to Adam for he not only allowed her to open her first Gate, he also trained with her following that event, making her gain as much as possible from the encounter.

Now that ten minutes had passed, her brain returned to a more normal state, and so they stopped their training, but the results were astonishing. Adam had to admit Jude was a rare genius, perhaps even better than Old Adam originally was.

She was like a sponge for knowledge and using Adam's guidance which could be said to be top grade, she had already reached the level of the Elites of the First Tier Guilds, and was only below King Slayer who was slightly above her.

And that was only in term of martial arts, if they had similar stats, but Adam discovered through their spar that her stats were quite good, she was faster than him, Adam was pretty sure that even after he gets his ring back she would still be slightly faster than him. Of course in term of strength he overwhelmed her by a great deal, but he was abnormally strong.

Once they finished their little training, Adam was ready to go back to the dungeon when Jude suddenly kneeled in front of him, shocking everyone present. They didn't understand what she was doing, but Adam recognized this posture, and it wasn't good…

"Please accept me as your disciple!"

As he feared, the customs of this world were similar to his own. Adam sighed internally and as he looked down at her he asked "Why would you take me as your master, I am barely stronger than you in martial arts." Well, barely maybe wasn't the right word, but he wasn't that overwhelmingly powerful either compared to her, if three people of her skill teamed up they would be able to defeat him.

Jude didn't raise her head though and said "Senior, you have spared me when I tried to kill you, you allowed me to breakthrough and taught me in your earnest, so I would be ashamed to simply leave without a thank. And for senior to be so strong despite being younger than me, I feel like if I need to have a master, then it must be you."

[Ding! The Non Playable Character 'Judith Skyward' wishes to become your disciple!]

Adam stayed silent for a moment before saying "I won't have a lot of time to teach you." Jude felt her heart beat faster and faster as she replied "It doesn't matter!"

Adam again stopped talking, making the atmosphere even tenser, even the others on the side looked tense despite not understanding what was happening.

When he felt Breyn was about to burst out in anger at him for dragging this out, he said "I accept."

[You have accepted 'Judith Skyward' as your disciple! Relationship enhanced to Worshiped! Your disciple will listen to your orders as long as you don't cross her limits, and you may exchange items with her. But your job is to teach her, and do it well or you will lose her respect!]

The world turned silent for an instant before Jude kowtowed but Adam stopped her and said "No need for that with me."

Jude nodded "Understood, Master." Adam rolled his eyes and turned back toward Eddy and said "I think we can go now, we have delayed for long enough, and we even have a new member with us now."

As he said that he left everyone stunned as he began walking away. After a couple of seconds Eddy woke up from his stupor and ran up to him along with the Dwarven Brothers and Baugh as they asked in unison "WHAT WAS THAT!"

Adam looked at them and chuckled "Too complicated to explain, go ask that disciple of mine. And don't shout like that, you will… nevermind, they are already here."

In front of the group a crowd of goblins appeared, it looked like there were about 70 of them this time, it was the biggest crowd they faced yet. But more importantly, there weren't only Common goblins among them, but Elite ones too.

There were three Shamans on the back and five Hobgoblins in the middle of the crowd. They were easily recognizable as the Shamans were the ones with the most clothes on while the Hobgoblins were taller than the rest and even had armors on them.

Eddy looked at his teammates and said "Into formation! Breyn, you attack the Shamans first!" Eddy nodded and disappeared as the rest entered into formation. Adam looked at Jude, who was left alone behind, and said "Follow Breyn and slay the Shamans and other long ranged fighters."

She nodded and disappeared as well. After that Adam didn't have the time to check what they were doing as the goblins reached them. The Shamans threw spells that seemed to power up the goblins while they got weakened a little, and they even started firing spells at them.

Despite that, the Common goblins weren't hard to fend off for the group. However, once the Hobgoblins reached them it became harder. The Dwarven Brothers could barely keep them in check and had no choice but to send two of them on the sides for Adam and Baugh to fight.

Baugh struggled to fight off the Hobgoblin, but Adam was much finer. He was originally stronger than the Orc, and now his skills had leveled up, and he became Level 15.

The hobgoblin in front of him had 6000 health, or 5400 HP because of the 10% reduction to its stats from the title. Seeing this Adam smirked as he first used [Charge], ramming his shoulder into the goblin's face, and then used [Crushing Blow].

-702 HP! -15% Defense!

Then, he activated [Lunar Smite] and [Mighty Strike] as he swung his sword toward the huge monster.

-3176 HP! Heavy Bleeding!

-1134 HP!

-1130 HP!

Critical Hit! -2262 HP!

The strong Hobgoblin, an Elite that was 5 levels above Adam, was killed with a single attack. No one around stopped what they were doing though as they had already seen what Adam was capable of doing earlier on.

Even though it was dead, the corpse of the Hobgoblin still was useful as right after it was killed it was sent flying toward the goblins rushing on the side, along with the other goblins who got killed in the aftermath of Adam's strike.

The corpse crushed a few goblins to death, but most importantly the dead bodies actually formed a kind of wall that bared the path of the goblins to the left, leaving Adam's side empty for a moment.

Since it was the case, Adam began attacking the three hobgoblins attacking the Dwarven Brothers and which they were holding on just fine, and three seconds later when his [Mighty Strike] was off cooldown once more, by some coincidence the Shaman who was weakening them got killed.

Because of that, Adam was able to send a full powered strike at the three hobgoblins, who were sent flying backwards, slivers of HP left.