Milo slowly began to stir. He resisted it.

A part of him knew that, once he woke, there would be no going back. He snuggled harder into his sleeping bag, trying to curl into a small enough ball that the waking world couldn’t find him.

Almost, he drifted off again, but a hollow sensation in his stomach had other ideas.

...fine.

Milo reached to the side of his bedroll, where he always kept his Soylent handy.

It wasn’t there. Instead, his fingers scrambled across hard-packed dirt and cool, dusty stone.

In a rush, the events of the last few days crashed back into Milo’s mind and he sat up, suddenly wide awake. His sleeping bag, splotched brown with his own dried blood, fell from around his shoulders to bunch at his waist as he looked around wildly. He was confused by what he saw.

To one side of him was the tunnel wall. He, along with both his pack and Backlebutt’s, were wedged into a little nook that was formed by the floor sloping down to meet said wall.

To the other side and all around him were rocks stacked carefully to make a small enclosure that hid his view of the rest of the tunnel. Backlebutt was nowhere to be seen.

...the crap? Milo levered himself up a little higher so he could see out.

He couldn’t be completely sure, given the dim lighting and the unfamiliar perspective, but he thought he was in the same stretch of tunnel he and Backlebutt had fought the skeleroos in...where he had passed out...because I took that potion to fix my broken arm. It worked!

He’d been supporting himself with his previously broken arm without even thinking about it. Marveling, he lifted and moved it around, completely pain-free. He frowned, though, noticing how much thinner the limb was. Worriedly, he pulled up his shirt, sucking in a breath at what he saw. Ribs.

Not abs. Ribs. Ugh. Building muscle takes forever. This is going to suck. Assuming I make it out of here alive and even get the chance to train again.

Milo lowered his shirt and made for his pack, drawing out two bottles of liquid food. May as well get started.

Other than working out, building muscle was about getting enough calories first and enough protein second. Well, rest was important too, but he couldn’t drink rest, and besides, he’d apparently just slept quite a while.

He practically poured one of the drinks straight down his throat before sipping on the next while he thought about his next move.

He was safe for the moment. Ish. The tunnel had been empty when he peeked out, and he had a nice little hiding spot here, presumably courtesy of Backlebutt. That was assuming any monsters passing by weren’t particularly observant or curious as to why there was suddenly a little rock fort nestled against the side of the tunnel.

Backlebutt was gone, but it seemed unlikely that he’d simply abandoned Milo, especially considering the fact that he’d left his pack here. Although, he did seem to have taken Milo’s gym bag minus the stuff Milo had kept inside it, which was currently strewn around by his feet.

He’s probably carrying rocks with it, Milo decided. Wait a second. Did he take…?

Anxiously, Milo sifted through all the stuff around him. He found his phone, which had been in Backlebutt’s possession last he was aware. That wasn’t what he’d been looking for, however. Also, it was dead now. RIP phone.

When he had searched through everything twice, his heart sank as the conclusion became undeniable.

Backlebutt had taken it. Milo’s hammer. His sole weapon.

Gone.

Milo peeked up over the side of the rock barricade, hoping to see the stocky form of Backlebutt making his way back from wherever he’d gone. But no, the tunnel remained empty.

Alright Milo, no need to freak out. He’ll be back. He’s a competent guy. He glanced around once more before dipping down below the top row of rocks.

Feeling extremely vulnerable, Milo racked his brain for anything else he could use as a weapon, regretting for the first time that he’d decided to leave his big wrench behind. Although, come to think of it, a good-sized rock would probably be more effective against those skeletons.

He had two knives and various sharp carving implements, but their blades ranged from short to miniscule. Even had they been longer, they would be completely useless against the only enemies he’d encountered thus far.

Oh, wait. I leveled up! Milo excitedly opened his menus to see if he had any more options that might help him.

It turned out that there were two new available skills, though whether either of them would be of any use was questionable.

-

Impart Knowledge: You may spend mana to instantly give information to another. The recipient will understand the information as if you had spoken eloquently for up to one minute. Requires clear line of sight. Active, 1 mana/impartment.

Fetch Book: You may spend mana to summon books to hand. Line of sight recommended. Active, 1 mana/10 seconds of book travel (speed variable).

-

Milo squinted at the skills. The first could be hugely helpful—if it accounted for language barriers. It didn’t specify, however, and it didn’t really matter how eloquently he spoke if the information was transmitted in English. It did have some interesting implications in battle, though. Silent, instantaneous communication could be very useful in a lot of situations.

And what would happen if he used it on his enemy? Perhaps it could be an effective distraction. What if, while locked in combat, he suddenly filled his opponent with the false knowledge that Milo’s ally was approaching it from behind? That would almost be on the level of some kind of illusion spell if it worked.

Definitely some interesting possibilities with that one…

However, it didn’t exactly address Milo’s current problem, which was that he really had no method of delivering enough damage to monsters. He could try throwing rocks like Backlebutt, but even that man, at his considerable level of prowess, wasn’t particularly effective at putting down a skeleroo using just his throwing skills. Not permanently. Milo would only be worse...and probably a lot.

He turned his attention to the second skill.

Fetch Book, at first glance, was completely useless, a skill for lazy librarians or a cool trick to show your friends. However, the bit about “clear line of sight recommended” had his mind buzzing. What an odd thing for the skill to say. Why would it recommend that? It’s almost like it’s trying to tell me something.

If there was a requirement that he had to visually see the book to make it come to him, the skill would have said that explicitly, like Impart Knowledge’s description did. Conversely, there would be no need to say anything if the skill allowed the book to intelligently find its way around objects in its path. The only thing he could think of, after considering carefully, was that the book didn’t path around obstacles—it must literally get summoned via the shortest distance from its resting place to Milo’s hand. The book would fly straight, ignoring obstacles. At variable speed. That had...implications. It depended greatly on just how variable the speed was, but it bore considering.

Milo tried to envision how the skill might work in battle. He had a single book with him, the medical text. It was pretty hefty; Milo imagined getting hit with it at any sort of respectable speed and winced. It would do some damage.

However, it was a book. Books were significantly more fragile than, say, rocks, which meant it would have a very limited number of effective strikes.

Is this line of thought even worth pursuing?

After quickly skimming through his entire list of available skills, Milo decided that yes, it was. Barely. It was literally the only skill he had with even the slightest chance of improving his damage potential, unless one of the modifiers for Penmanship made his pens mightier than a sword. Which he doubted.

Come to think of it, Fetch Book is bound to have modifiers. Is it too much to hope that one of them lets me expand the usage to non-books or something? Or maybe it lets me blast books away like cannonballs instead of summoning them?

Okay, probably not that. I’m getting off track…

Combat. How would the skill be applied?

First, he’d need to get the book behind his enemy if he wanted to hit it using his skill. He supposed he could throw it, but he immediately pictured it flapping open due to air resistance, lowering its effectiveness as a projectile and causing it to impact awkwardly, likely damaging it. It would probably be best to leave it on the ground and then back away from it while the enemy comes forward...

Actually, no matter what he did, flight characteristics were going to be a huge problem. He assumed the book would be summoned to his hand binding-first, like a book pulled from a bookcase. That seemed pretty good, aerodynamically speaking. However, if he was going to be summoning the book at a speed that would have an impact on enemies, he didn’t want his hand to actually be there in its way. He’d have to disable the skill and move his hand so he didn’t get hurt, which would likely cause the book to lose its stability.

That being the case, Milo would need some way of protecting or reinforcing the book if he wanted to use it as a weapon, like wrapping it in something. His sleeping bag? How much weight would the skill allow him to move? No, nevermind, I’m not going to pound my enemies into submission with my sleeping bag.

It was useless.

Milo was grasping at straws, and he knew it. The only reason he was considering taking the skill was because Backlebutt had run off with the sole legitimate weapon they had between them.

Sighing, he closed his skills menu and opened up his stat enhancement menu to place another point into mana regeneration. He still wanted a mage class fusion, and the system had pointed the way. It might be his only way out of this mess; his next level up looked like it was going to be a long ways away, which meant he couldn’t expect more Scholar skill options in the near future—not that they were likely to be of much use anyway.

Maybe his best option was to bide his time, spending as much mana as his regeneration would allow and hope that a mage class option would present itself eventually. Then, in theory, he could fuse his Scholar class with it. It was kind of a long shot, but honestly his odds of survival didn't look too good outside of that happening.

As for his next Scholar skill, he wouldn’t make any decisions for now; he would wait for Backlebutt’s return, then decide what he wanted to do if and when that happened. Honestly, he’d probably just take Impart Knowledge for the chance of greatly enhanced communication. If Backlebutt didn’t come back, on the other hand…

Well, then, Milo would have some interesting decisions to make.

Name: Milo Jemison

Species: Homo Sapiens

Class: (Elite) Scholar

Level: 4

Next Level: 0/560 XP

Cap: 14

Constitution: Unmodified, (-)Crippled

Strength: Unmodified

Health Regen: Unmodified

Perception: Unmodified

Mana Reservoir: 10

Mana Regen: 1 MP/8 minutes

Skills (3):

Pause For Thought

Improved Cognition

Skim

Basic Class Pool (11): Emergency Medic, Explorer, Juggler, Sketch Artist, Tumbler, Lumberjack, Primitive Weaponwright, Strongman, Hunter, Warrior, Miner

Journeyman Class Pool (1): Sniper

Advanced Class Pool (1): (Elite) Scholar

Class Fusion Points: 3

Modifier Points: 4

Legacy Skill Slots: 3