"EVERYTHING IS A FUCKING SCAM!" Ronan roared his frustration at the fireplace as he stared at the four notifications that had appeared after he opened the myriad skills tomes that had been given to him as gifts for the Path of the Gladiator.

Each and every one of them was a fucking duplicate. And not just any duplicate, but duplicates of the four skills he had received the last time he used these epic skills tomes before the first step of the path.

Even though he felt he knew what would happen, Ronan still took out the epic thesauruses and used them one by one. The first? Duplicate. The second a duplicate, and the third. Every fucking consumable that he was gifted turned out to be a duplicate of the same thing it had granted him the previous iteration.

What the fuck is going on? Is this the system catching on to my heritage or is this my heritage being weird? Ronan was puzzled and he wanted an answer. My heritage is related to time, that's for sure. Maybe something to do with the fact the timeline was the same and so I received the same things because events happened the same way?

He considered that for a while before shaking his head. But in previous iterations I've repeated my actions and things have worked out differently… There was no obvious answer he could find by just thinking about it.

While he wanted nothing more than to smash the waiting room up and scream bloody murder, that would only raise suspicion. No, the best way to get out his frustration would be to start that invasion and obliterate some aliens.

Unfortunately there were three days until he could do that, which meant he needed to fill his time with something more productive. He almost wished he hadn't used all of his shards before heading here….

In the end Ronan used the rest of his waiting time to continue to sharpen his sorcery. He was still waiting for the moment the uncommon class evolved into something better, but even with the class being the same as the moment he'd locked it in, his sorcery skills had grown in leaps and bounds.

The announcer arrived on cue and 'prepared' him for his speech. Ronan was in a foul mood and any thought of putting on a staunch show went right out the window. He insulted all the spectators again, using curses far more foul than he had the last time.

The difficulty selection appeared as he was taken out of the arena and into the waiting room. He considered going down the same route again—he knew what to expect from it and could sweep the planet easily. However, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be doing the Path of the Gladiator again if it was linked to the harder difficulty tutorial. So, that being said, he decided to maximise his rewards and go straight for the nightmare difficulty.

He'd killed the governor once and he would surely be able to do it again. If nothing else, he could just take out all of the military units stationed in Grathamor to gain some quick levels before he made the jump to the big boss.

When Ronan arrived on the planet, he realised he may have made a mistake. He was, once again, in the centre of a military compound. This one was inside Grathamor itself—a fact made obvious by the enormous bubble overhead—and there were at least fifty soldiers inside the large courtyard his incursion portal had spawned in.

Most had the uniform of regular soldiers, but there were three wearing the pink lieutenant's uniform. That was a manageable number of enemies, but that was only the beginning of his problems.

The moment the first soldier spotted him stepping out of the portal, all hell broke loose. The metallic rifles appeared and some even drew laser-swords, charging at him. An alarm blared over the sounds of shouting and the whining hum of the Grathen weapons. Despite the odds being stacked against him from the get-go, Ronan felt his heart beginning to race.

Even in a challenge he had already defeated, there was still excitement to be had. Taking the rare hammer out of his inventory and keeping a metaphorical finger on the trigger of magic money, he raised the heavy weapon and rushed forwards to meet the alien warriors in battle.

The first swing of his hammer caved in the head of a raging soldier, killing it instantly. The black-uniformed masses were all lower level than him and Ronan didn't want to waste time on them while the alarm was summoning more powerful enemies that he would need to level up to take down. Or simply use his growing armoury of incredibly overpowered skills.

Not to mention that his stats were through the roof. As he tore his way through five soldiers in a single swing of the hammer, he realised just how ridiculous his new stat-boosting skill was. He'd thought that having dao child was an insane advantage with its triple digit free stat points at mythical rating, but stupendous stats was beyond broken. It gave him 13 stat points for every 10 points he had, which seemed like a skill that shouldn't even exist.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I wonder if it's only through the power of the Chronos Forge that I was able to obtain it. It exists as a skill in the system, though? His dual mind trait allowed him to use half of his thinking power to ponder that dilemma while using the other half to tear through the swathes of soldiers.

Every time a rifle beam was going to strike him, Ronan used magic money to deflect it. The cost wasn't even impacting his fortune with how many credits he was raking in. While these regular soldiers weren't helping him level up much, they were certainly inflating his bank account.

The first lieutenant rushed into the fray to attack, wielding twin laser-swords. He wondered why those first two he'd encountered the last time only had that weird power-boosting device. It was probably because they were outside the city and not that important overall.

He decided to put the hammer away and conjure two shortswords of his own to match the lieutenant. However, just two exchanges in Ronan realised his skills were far superior. Since obtaining blade maestro from the princess fighting with a sword came naturally to him, as though they were an extension of his own body. The movements it ingrained into his mind weren't perfect, though. Each time he used them in battle they were refined a little more.

Three more exchanges later he knocked one of the laser-swords from the lieutenant's hand and thrust one of his own through the Grathen's head, ending its life in an instant. At that moment he caught a flash of white light out of the corner of his eye and turned to see that both of the other lieutenants had activated the power-boosting devices. They turned to face him, both wielding nothing but their fists, and charged through the courtyard towards him.

At the same time he saw a few more soldiers appear on top of the walls, most of them wielding laser-rifles and taking position to shoot. Things were about to get more intense.

When he killed the third lieutenant, slicing its head off with a spinning backwards strike, he was caught on the arm by a glancing laser-rifle shot. It didn't do much damage, but forced him to turn his focus to the walls, which were now filled with soldiers sniping him from afar, none daring to get close and be cut apart.

You have killed [Guadak 57 - Grathen Lieutenant Lv.68]!

Enemy killed with a critical hit, 2.1x Experience gained!

+1 Iron Credit

+218 Bronze Credits

+984 Copper Credits

+17 [Mana V] Mastery

+2 [Mana VI] Mastery

+23 [Stamina V] Mastery

+5 [Stamina VI] Mastery

+12 [Pain III] Mastery

+8 [Health V] Mastery

+6 [Sword V] Mastery

+Grathen Federation Lt. Uniform (Uncommon)

+Grathen Neural Link Lv.65 (Uncommon)

You have leveled up to Lv.73!

You have leveled up to Lv.74!

You have leveled up to Lv.75!

You have leveled up to Lv.76!

You have leveled up to Lv.77!

You have leveled up to Lv.78!

You have been restored!

+30 Vitality

+30 Endurance

+12 Wisdom

+12 Intelligence

+18 Acuity

+711 Free Stat Points

You have reached the mastery cap for [Stamina]!

Stamina V has evolved to Stamina VI!

All stamina costs are reduced by a moderate amount. Whenever you expend stamina to activate a skill or item, regain 15% of the expended stamina. Efficacy of endurance +20%

You have reached the mastery cap for [Mana]!

Mana V has evolved to Mana VI!

Mana costs for skills are reduced by a moderate amount. Activation and channeling times for skills which cost mana are reduced by a moderate amount. Wisdom potency +20%. Wisdom efficacy +25%

You have reached the mastery cap for [Health]!

Health IV has evolved to Health V!

All health costs are reduced moderately. Vitality efficacy +25%. Vitality potency +14%

You have reached the mastery cap for [Sword]!

Sword IV has evolved to Sword V!

Weight and balance penalties for all swords are reduced moderately. When inflicting [Bleeding] with swords, gain an 11% chance to inflict a second instance of [Bleeding] for 80% of the damage as the first. Natural sword talent is multiplied by 1.5x

He skimmed through the notifications, dismissing all of it for the time being. He was in top shape thanks to the restoration at level 76, but that wouldn't remain the case if he didn't make a move on the ranged attackers.

Ronan let his swords dissipate and started channeling a rainbow bomb. He only needed one hand to do so and he realised it didn't occupy much of his brainpower, so he attempted to start forming a second rainbow bomb in his other hand. At first he failed—not because of his lacking focus, but rather that it was tough to split his mana equally to feed both bombs with stable energy.

However, his experience with the Nine Mouths Delta Mystic Energy Art and its use with cycling his mana proved invaluable. A few seconds later he had figured out the trick and was forming two rainbow bombs at once.

The snipers had seen this and started to really let loose on him. Every second he was shot at by a fresh laser beam. Each and every shot was blocked by a magic money barrier, which still barely made a dent in his finances.

The first rainbow bomb finished forming and he immediately tossed it at the centre of one of the walls while moving towards the compound gate. At that same moment, the gate exploded inwards, showering the courtyard in rubble. When the dust cleared, Ronan saw a flash of gold through the now empty-gateway.

The first captain had arrived.

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