Overchaos Chapter 5: Peak Performance

A/N: Here guys, enjoy a double whammy. It's on the house.

~Ludo~

Annoyingly, it took me a bit more to make the guild lady understand that, yes, I know the consequences for trying to cheat the guild, yes, I am sure I can do the quests I am trying to take on for fucks sake.

I would have been way more annoyed had I not dealt with shitty bureaucracy and customer support before in my previous life.

Eventually, I got her to point out to the quests that would give me the most chances for ranking up. Ranking up was a matter as simple as proving to the guild that you were easily capable of carrying out copper missions and were ready for Iron ones.

But while I was busy looking like I was staring at the quest board, I was actually staring at the interface displaying the new tickets I had gotten after talking to the guild girl.

Feat Achieved! Finish your first Quest(Goblin Extermination) perfectly

1x Silver Trait Gacha Ticket

Feat Achieved! Finish the quest: Herb Gathering

+1x Bronze Skill Gacha Ticket

Finally, some more fuel for my gambling addiction. I was starting to get the shakes. I should start with a lower rarity ticket, as is the custom.

Rolling Bronze Skill Gacha...

A Common Skill.

[Novice Physics]

|Rarity: Common|

You have the skills and knowledge of a Physics Major. You have a decent repertoire of knowledge regarding physics and the laws of the universe. You know why and how things fall down, why magnets repel each other and how to build a nuclear bomb.

I frowned a little as I felt the wave of information crash into my mind and assimilate itself before I felt the mental pressure subside. Granted, it was not as great as something like combat skills, but getting a perfect refresher on my physics course and beyond was certainly useful.

Now then, silver trait, I need something to help me with combat.

Rolling Silver Trait Gacha...

An Uncommon Trait!

[Sensor]

|Rarity: Uncommon|

You have always had a knack for sensing and locating mana, magic and magical energy signatures. Your ability to sense and locate energy, as well as your Thinker abilities, are enhanced.

I felt a slight tingling in my eyes as the trait integrated itself within me. Focusing a little, I could see some kind of bluish aura wafting off of everyone inside this building, there was less on the guild girls but way more on the people wearing wizard attire.

I was not precise enough to exactly quantify how much they had, but I'm sure that will come with time.

Sure, this yet again did not help much with combat it was incredibly useful, I basically got Arche's talent but better from an uncommon trait. And it improved my Thinker class abilities, of which Prophetic Compass was one.

All in all, a solid lineup. But I would appreciate some stopping power sooner rather than later.

Speaking of Thinker abilities, I found several quests that would be useful for my case. Find my missing kid, retrieve my caravan, yada yada.

These would be the quickest and easiest missions for me to accomplish. And I could also finish some monster hunts while completing them.

Monster Hunts, hunting monsters around the country, was a fast way to rank up in the guild, and I was fairly sure I could shred anything a platinum rank could handle as long as it was a one-on-one.

So I decided to grab the quest of retrieving a brooch lost in the Harween Forest west of E-Rantel, and decided to hunt some monsters in the forest while I did so.

But before leaving, I asked the guild lady where I could sell the rest of my herb collection that was stretching out my bag. Which was when she directed me to the Bareare Pharmacy. A name I recognised.

It took me no less than a 2-minute walk to arrive at the shop's door and enter inside to see a young man with brown hair covering his face working behind the counter and wiping a shelf. Noticing me enter, he turned to me.

"Welcome to the Bareare Pharmacy, I am Nferia Bereare. How may I help you?"

Hmm, he was a canon character; he certainly had a good talent and was a talented alchemist too. It would be useful to establish a relationship with him.

"Hey, I got a bunch of excess Helleth Herbs from my quest. And the lady at the guild said you guys would be willing to take this off my hands."

"Yes, as long as the herbs are high quality, I'd be willing to buy them off your hands. May I see?"

I nodded and dumped the contents of my bag onto the counter, creating a small pile of herbs. In response, Nferia pulled out a monocle from behind the counter and inspected them thoroughly.

"These are good quality herbs. And you have harvested them quite carefully too I see. Most adventurers pull them out by the stem which damages the plants and makes them expire faster. I can pay you a silver for every 50 grams."

That was mostly Samson's doing, he extracted the plants out of the ground quite expertly at my request. According to him, one of his past partners was a farmer so he had plenty of experience with this stuff.

"Good, I'll sell all of it. Can you give me half in money and half in basic healing potions?"

Nferia nodded and took the herbs and weighed them before taking them to the back, coming out with 8 silver and 4 healing potions.

"Good stuff, thanks man, pleasure doing business with you."

Nferia nodded and shook my hand with a firm grip.

"Likewise, if you have more herbs to sell, I'll be glad to buy them."

Putting the money and potions in my bag, I left the shop and headed into the markets to buy some supplies. All in all, I spent around a silver and a half buying supplies like beef, bread, spices, replacement clothes, more bags, etc before heading home.

It was not all that difficult to make a burger to feed Samson as thanks for carrying me so hard, I had to improvise a bit, but Samson seemed to definitely prefer it over eating Goblins and whatever else to eat. And a taste of home also helped me recover my mood.

After eating and washing my clothes again and changing into a clean pair, I started experimenting with Shape Alteration.

Something I desparately needed was better physical stats that could thankfully be achieved with Shape Alteration with some effort.

I may not be a biology major, but I probably know the human body probably better than almost anyone in this world.

Shape Alteration did not allow me to change the composition of my body, such as being able to shift around the proteins in my muscles, but it allowed me to change my body in any way I wanted as long as it stayed in the theoretically possible range. I only had to know what I was doing; my body picked up the slack in other areas, so I didn't have to be super precise.

Now, I used to work out quite a bit in my previous life. Helped keep my mind off things, and I researched quite a lot about bodybuilding, so I knew what I was doing here.

So I spent hours in front of the mirror, practising and applying changes to see which ones were best.

What I was trying to do was create the optimal human body, or more simply, I was min-maxing my body.

First off, I started with the fat on my body; there was a decent bit, but I managed to make proper use of it without just throwing it away, as it could come in useful. First, I compressed the non-essential fat around my body and layered it under my muscles, making me look much more muscular and downright ripped while providing better shock absorption, albeit not much. Like subdermal armour made of lightly compressed fat.

Then I altered the position and structure of my musculature. Slightly extending the bicep to optimal lengths, making my pectorals larger, compressing and changing my abs slightly to make them more compact, laying my obliques better, and in general shaping my muscles into tighter, more compact and corded forms to maximise strength for the amount of space they took. Though I held off on maxing that out, as with my current mass, it would make me look too skinny.

I also lengthened my tendons just slightly, along with my range of motion of my joints, without impeding my mobility to grant me basically perfect flexibility.

Then it was more trial and error until I shaped all of my muscles to work optimally and produce the maximum amount of power they could, until my body looked like that of a monster fighter. Kind of like a cross between a Baki and Kengan character crossed with Garou but skinnier.

I could feel how much stronger I was, at least twice as strong as I was before, maybe even close to three. I had tuned my body into as good as it could have possibly become without any cellular alteration.

For now, I had a nagging suspicion that the only reason I couldn't just alter my chemical composition however I liked was because of my lacking magical stats. Somehow, I could become a woman(I checked, it was weird but perfect for a disguise), but I couldn't improve the composition of my muscles.

Well, gacha bullshit is gacha bullshit. It's just up to me to work around it as I get stronger.

And now that I look at myself, boy, I am glad I wore a long-sleeved shirt to the guild and nobody got too good of a look at me. I was now absolutely ripped and smaller in bulk, while my skin had turned perfect, baby soft, smooth, elastic, without impurities and blemishes, and the symmetry of my face was on point too despite not being made overtly more handsome.

I had the body of a fantasy warrior and the skin condition of a prince.

Shape Altering, you are a godsend.

Feat Achieved! Achieve Superhuman Conditioning by yourself

+1 Gold Trait Gacha Ticket

I didn't expect this to actually give me a ticket, but I guess agonising over textbooks and watching so many fitness videos actually came in handy huh? Hopefully, this gives me a physical trait I can use. I have a lot of plans that involve hunting canon monsters.

Rolling Gold Trait Gacha Ticket...

A Rare Trait!

[What's monogamy?]

|Rarity: Rare|

Women are very accepting of any delusions of a harem or a woman loving you, you might have. They tend not to question the logistics or logic of having multiple women as lovers.

Man.

What does a guy like me have to do for a combat trait?

Sure, a harem is nice, but not so nice when they will die alongside you or get sent to Demiurge's happy farm.

Well, I'll take my victories where I can get them. Maybe seducing more girls will give better tickets?

Regardless, it seems like I'll have to get tickets the old-fashioned way.

Time to go adventurin'! ...again.

A/N: Ludo is grinding, and he is grinding hard. While not exactly suited for combat, Sensor is incredible with his current setup, especially in the new world, where so few people can sense magical power. Also, don't worry, guys, the pre-anime start adventuring won't continue for much longer. We will reach canon in a bit.

Cheating with abilities and knowledge is one of my favourite things to write, when you can stretch abilities to get some unique benefits out of them, like Ludo's new superhuman physique. And of course, as expected, he got THE trait. At least it will make my life much easier from now.