Mature Content Warning: Not much at all

Author's Note: So, it's all about that training this time. I don't know if I will update again today, probably not. I have a few other things to do. So, this one is slightly longer than some segements. :)

Chapter 6.2: Working Hard

Step and slash, Blackthorne continued the most basic, and only, sword attack that he knew. His skill-set provided the most basic of information, sort of like a mental download of knowledge. However, everything that he learned after that would be used to increase those skills. Increasing a level meant that he had gained greater knowledge and skill over time. He gained stat and development bonuses, but little else usually came with that increase.

He stepped forward once more and slashed down with great force. Yet another onion fell before his might. For the last three days he had gone to bed and slept for roughly ten hours each night thanks to his good friend, cold medicine.

He had studied various things such as chainmail item crafting and jewelry making in general during his waking hours, but the thing he had focused on the most was the book he had been given. His hard training was all for the sake of becoming stronger.

An onion cried out with a mighty scream, but the mage-in-training withstood the tear-inducing effect then grinned at it. “Not so tough now, are you?”

After he’d reached level four and gained another level in his dark magic skill, his spirit had risen to the point that the onions no longer bothered him as much. At least, their direct special attacks did not bother him much. He had to be careful to avoid their corpses for about one minute after they were defeated. He had reached level five much more quickly because of that.

He sighted his next target then grinned dangerously. The onions liked to hunt in groups at night. He liked that about them. It was like the experience just gathered itself up to present itself to him for acceptance.

His copper sword slashed outward and neatly bisected an onion. He knew now that it was the effect of his weapon attack stat and not his swordsmanship skill. That skill had only risen to level two, though he suspected that it would rise again soon. When he attacked a monster, the damage was increased slightly based on his weapons and skills, but his raw attack stat seemed to provide a lot more oomph. Of course, further development in swordsmanship might change that.

The last of the onions were slaughtered with the flash of his copper sword. He quickly moved away from the corpse then looked around the battle field.

“Twenty-two.” said Scott. He had just slain twenty-two onions. Not too long ago that many onions had been too much for him. Without their tear-inducing powers, and with increased durability due to increasing his level, he was able to handle this many with ease.

After a few minutes passed he went through the corpses and looked for the little green stones that he liked to gather. He eyed the corpses for a moment then pulled out a sack from his bag and stuffed them inside. He had gotten into the habit of taking extra apple sacks with him into the wilderness. He had only so much space in his main bag, and he chose to save that for food and more valuable loot. If he had to cut and run, something he had been forced to do a few times, he only lost a sack of onions or a few rat meat parts. The horns, fangs, tails, and stones all went into the bag.

It was not long after he finished cleaning the area that a long awaited sound whispered through his mind. Blackthorne’s eyes lit up. He had reached level six at last! He immediately checked his status to see what had changed. He had originally set out to reach level five, but after realizing his mistake he knew that he would need to go to six in order to reach the twenty skill points that he needed.

<<< Status >>>

Name: Blackthorne

Level: 6

Skill Points: 20

Vitality: 44[44]

Weapon Attack: 19[19]

Durability: 22[22]

Speed: 17[17]

Spirit: 51[51]

>>

“Over a hundred hours of wandering the wilderness fighting anything that move... It’s finally paid off.” Blackthorne sighed loudly. He’d spent the better part of his time hunting down monsters. Only trips to town to sell his junk had been allowed. His equipment had a thirty day shelf life before it disappeared, no one knew if that meant dream world days or real world days, but they would find out quite soon. The first week in real life was almost over, and the first month in the dream would come to a close soon. They would have their answer.

Blackthorne opened up his skill menu then selected the mana sense ability. It was time to make his newly learned ability into an actual skill. He was eager to see if that actually helped in any way. During his relatively short amount of down time he had practiced the ability to sense the life force and potential mana around him, but he had never been able to sense more than a small handful of organisms.

He felt a strange sense of energy flowing through his body for a brief moment then the soft voice of the goddess whispered through his mind. “You have acquired a new primary skill, Mana Sense.”

<<< Skills >>>

Primary

Dark Magic Level 3

Conjuration Level 1

Mana Sense Level 1

Secondary

Heavy Armor Usage Level 1

Sword Mastery Level 2

Ring Mastery Level 1

Tertiary

Synergy Level 2

Jewelry Crafting Level 5

Enchanting Level 1

Alchemy Level 1

>>

“I’m definitely stronger than before, but what will that skill do...” What Blackthorne really wanted to know was if the mana sense skill was worth five level’s worth of skill points!

He looked around and did not see any enemies in the area. So, he began to focus on his ability to sense life and mana potential. He picked a spot nearby and focused on a piece of grass that was arranged differently than the others.

Blackthorne continued to focus on that blade of grass with relaxed focus. He started to close his eyes so that he could envision the grass in his mind but to his surprise he found that he did not have to go that far. He began to see the rainbow fire of various life essences start to rise up around the area.

“What?” He blinked then turned his relaxed gaze about the area and noted the same effect occurred within a short distance all around him. He could sense the mana potential of the area in a perfect sphere all around his position.

Curious, he took a step forward and the image flickered slightly but did not disappear. The sensing ability continued to work. However, he started to lose focus as he became more existed. The image faded and it refused to return for several minutes afterward.

It was not until Blackthorne managed to calm down and relax his gaze once more that the effect returned. He could see the rainbow fire of life and its potential to create mana all around him. He started to walk again. Each step he took caused the image to fade, but if he stopped for a few seconds it would flare back to life.

Uncertain if this was a method to train the skill, he continued to do it anyway. He wanted to be well acquainted with the ability to sense mana. It was already much stronger than his old unskilled capacity. If he had to guess, he could sense mana up to four or five feet away.

He decided to walk slowly back to town. It would be morning soon, and it seemed like this would be the best way to practice the skill. Whenever he lost focus, he would stop for a few minutes then try again.

The walk back to town took several hours, and it was quite lucrative for his skill development! He counted the steps he took in order to see if maybe sensing mana was enough to actually increase the skill. After he took twenty-four steps, including the first few he had taken earlier, he received a whisper that told him that his skill had increased. He received three points of spirit due to its nature as a primary skill!

He counted fifty more steps before the whisper came again. The next increase came after he managed over another hundred steps. Town was several miles away.

Due to his slow motions he had been forced to fight various onions and the occasional rat fiend. He did not mind that at all, however. At this point even the rat fiends were nothing but walking money and experience dispensers. They had powerful flame attacks and did a little damage, even now, but he did not fear them as he did before. They were just meat to him now. That sort of feeling was no doubt natural when your innate durability was higher than the defensive power of the armor that you wore.

His ability to sense mana rose like a rocket until it reached level five, but afterword it took longer and longer. He suspected that the distance more than doubled with each level increase. He managed to reach level eight in mana sensing before he reached the road to town. At that point, he knew that it would take a lot of time and dedicated effort to raise the skill further, or he would need to find a better method.

Blackthorne was glad that he had chosen to make that skill into a primary one. The leveling difference would not be that high at first, but it would have soon been highly problematic. He would have probably still have reached level six or seven with mana sensing as a tertiary skill, but beyond that the difference would have become enormous.

He already figured that he would have to walk all the way back to the spot he had just left and then return to the road once more to get his skill to level ten. Then he would probably have to do the exact same thing once more to get close to eleven, double that for twelve.

If he wanted to waste a few weeks of his life in this world he could probably grind the skill to twenty, while fighting onions and rats. The extra stats would be nice, and he definitely planned to walk the grasslands later in order to train the skill and fight monsters. Of course, he would be stuck fighting weak monsters if he did that. The only thing keeping him from finding something slightly stronger was his equipment. The rats and onions would probably stop being worth his while entirely after a few more hunting trips.

“I’ll have to get better at sensing mana while moving at speed. If I can keep it always active, or close to it, then it won’t be such a pain to level.” Blackthorne nodded at his decision. He wanted to get to town and sell his loot at the moment, but when he went to test the ability later he would try walking faster.

However, there was one thing that he wanted to do now that he had trained that ability a bit. It was time to try and draw on that mana in order to cast a spell!

Blackthorne had tinkered with this over the past few days, but he had been unable to do anything since he could not maintain awareness of the mana potential while focusing on a spell. Now he could focus on that potential while moving around. It might be possible.

According to the book, the first thing to do was to focus on the mana in the area. So, he used his ability to sense mana and became aware of the rainbow fire of the world around him.

After that came the hard part. He had to visualize that energy move. It had to stream toward him in order to create mana. He had worked on it a bit, but never managed to complete the process before.

Blackthorne took a few deep breaths and began to feel for the energy around him. It was a strange sort of action, like a cross between visualization and the sensation that someone might feel if they came in contact with static electricity. His body hair began to waiver. His clothing began to ruffle and wave in a breeze that did not exist.

He stretched his hand out before him and tried his best to visualize that static effect in the space before his palm. He focused on the image of the rainbow fire flowing toward that image like metal moved toward a magnet.

Tiny, almost imperceptible, sparks began to flicker and flow toward his hand. However, they dissipated before they came anywhere near his hand. He could sense the mana, but he could not net draw upon it properly. Though, he did notice that the flickering sparks were drawn closer to him than they were just that morning. He’d increased his spirit by around thirty points that day, so that was a good sign. There had been a lot more flickering lights during the process as well.

He kept trying, but after several minutes of concentrated effort he became tired and felt a bit battered. He checked his status then sighed. He’d expended a few points of vitality in the process. It was a slow drain, and definitely better than he would experience if he had tried to cast a spell directly. Still, he could not even generate a single point of mana at this point.

“Maybe my spirit stat is not high enough?” It rated at seventy-five points after training his mana sense ability. How much spirit did he need to draw mana? Blackthorne decided then and there that he would spend the next few days in the dream world doing nothing but training his magic. He had already earned enough money to live for a few weeks due to his hard training.

If he spent at least one real world day doing nothing but training in the dream world, he should easily break past one hundred points of spirit. That would be a good point to try again. It was an arbitrary number, but it was a nice round arbitrary number.

He focused on his ability to sense mana once more and began the walk toward town. It would be a slow, arduous, process, but every little bit would help.