Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Chapter 160: Truth

As the Collins family came back home, Elizabeth took out a delicious looking cake. She hadn't made it herself, since she wasn't a baker, but had asked one of her old friends who was one.

This was a custom cake, with meringue and raspberries as the main ingredients, which was Matt's favorite fruit.

As they ate the cake, Matt suddenly asked "Adam, is Epoch good?" Adam chuckled "Better than you can ever imagine. You would thrive in that game."

Matt's eyes shone a little as he asked "You think?" Adam nodded and said "With your brain, I believe you will be able to become one of the best mages' to ever exist."

Matt nodded, and after some hesitation, he asked "Was it the game that changed you so much?" Adam asked "Changed? Have I?"

Matt replied hurriedly "Nothing bad, you grew more confident, and you have a peculiar aura to yourself Seeing your achievements, I can understand the first point, but your aura are the rumors true?"

Adam was surprised his brother was able to feel the change that happened inside his body, but he still asked "What rumors?"

Elizabeth and Jean also looked a bit curious, they obviously knew what he was talking about. Matt said "There has been rumors about the game. According to those rumors, the techniques in the game can be used in reality, if mastered."

Adam looked at the three, and first hesitated, but after a moment he concluded there was no use in lying to them. Adam's eyes went toward his drink, and with a move of his finger, the water in the glass started floating.

With his current mastery, although he could use it to deal with Iron Ranks, that was only if there was a water source nearby. He wasn't yet able to condense the water elements present in the air.

As his family looked at the phenomenon with wide eyes, the water began to take star shapes and then turned into ice. Then, he turned them into steam, and turned it back into water, and put it back into his drink.

Then, he said "There are many secrets you do not know of But yes, those rumors are true." Jean and Elizabeth were silent, but Matt asked "Is Epoch a real world, instead of just a game?"

Adam looked at his brother surprised, and Matt explained himself "Looks like I was right Right from the beginning, it was weird. Although VR games have already been created, and good ones already existed, the jump in term of realism and IA was too big, a single company couldn't be so far ahead of all the others."

Then, Adam nodded and said "It is indeed a true world, and the people in it are real. But you should keep this to yourself, those are secrets."

After a moment, he continued "Since you know about it, there are other things you should know. Super Humans already exist in this world, and there are two ways to become stronger. One is cultivation, and the other the Gates."

Then, Adam slowly explained to the three many things about the two. For the Gates, he only spoke of the first three, but he said everything he knew about cultivation, except from the powerhouses of the human race. Still, he told them he was stronger than the majority.

After more explanations, Adam didn't even have to tell his brother he had to start training as the later asked Adam himself. As for his parents, they didn't really care about such things, for them as long as their boys were strong then it was enough.

Adam thus introduced his brother to the Gate training. From his own experience, Adam inferred that opening the First Gate should be quite easy for his brother, more than other people, because he already had a good mastery of his brain, through his intelligence.

It would also be the same for the Second Gate, he should be able to activate it more easily than others because his body has already been fighting against a deadly disease for years now.

This should allow him to catch up to other, so that even if he didn't train from childhood, using those two years should be enough for him to open those two Gates, he may even take less time.

However, the Third Gate would be a great hurdle for him, because of how weak his body was. It wasn't like Adam who could quickly reeducate his body, the reason he was able to do this was because he was in a good shape originally and lost his muscles because of overwork and stress.

But Matt always had a weak body which is why he would first have to strengthen his body and then push it to the limits.

In the end, it would be up to Matt as to how much progress he would be able to make. And even if he were to give up, although Adam thought that was extremely unlikely knowing his brother, even if that were to happen, it wouldn't matter, Adam believed he could protect his family.

Adam finally returned to Epoch, and was relieved to see he was still safe in his hiding spot. As his avatar woke up, Neith sensed the disturbance and woke up from her nap.

Adam jumped back into the water, which no one even noticed, and summoned Neith back in the world, as they went back to their training.

However, this time Adam didn't train as intensely as the first two days and would often distance himself a little from the boat to kill a few monsters.

The more they advanced, the stronger the monsters were becoming. Going from Level 50, they climbed all the way up to Level 100, but Adam had no problem taking care of them. First they weren't of a very high rank, and while in water his strength was multiplied.

Apart from the Water Concept and his skills, Adam also worked a little on his sword, and worked on understanding and mastering his sword's skill, [Sword Cry].

The reason for this was that Adam believed he had understood a bit of Sword Concept as Old Adam when he created his Sword Art in the past, but he had merged his Sword Concept with his sword art so well that he didn't really master the Concept.

But the only way to use his sword art's moves was to open the Fifth Gate, so to research and isolate the Sword Concept he had understood, he first had to open the Fifth Gate.

From what he had guessed, the Sword Concept he understood was extremely high leveled, and could very possibly be a Sovereign Concept as well, and it was even in the bigger percentages. It might be in the tens of percent.

But Adam didn't want to wait to open the 5th Gate before starting to understand the Sword Concept, which is why he decided he would start with his [Sword Cry].

The skill came from a sword made for a Sovereign, so the skill might very well lead to understanding a part of the Sword Sovereign Concept.

Still, it was easier said than done. Elemental skills and weapon skills were quite different from each other, and so were the concepts. For an Elemental Skill, one would need to synchronize the body and the elements to use a skill.

However, for a Weapon Skill had to understand the weapon as deeply as the body, and synchronize the body with the weapon instead of the elements.

Those were two very different things, and also why Adam wasn't able to make stellar progress by the time they arrived to their destination.

After four days of sailing, their boat had finally landed on the shores of the Hellish Plains, the closest place to Hell on Epoch, as well as the headquarters of the Demon Cult for the last 1000 years.