Several hours passed as he worked. A pile of grass bracelets formed near him that varied greatly in the quality of their creation.

Blackthorne ate enough onions to regain his full vitality long before this point, even after filling a few rings with his energy, but he'd thought better of attempting enchanting too soon. He wanted to be able to eat a few more onions immediately after making the attempt to imbue his weapon with magic.

Well, if the truth were to be told he did not want to eat them. They made his tongue feel like it would blister. He did want the option to do so in opposition to his potential death, however.

“Alright, it’s time.” Blackthorne unsheathed his blade and held it lightly in his hands. The most basic form of enchanting in the dream world was the ability to temporarily imbue an item with corresponding magic. Jolt was an attack spell, so it needed to be added to a designated weapon.

He concentrated on the sword for a moment. The overall nature of enchantment was not a difficult process to utilize. It was simple to forge a link with his sword, much like he had done with the grass ring.

At the moment, he'd forged a link with three of those rings at the expense of unequipping his armor. The life force he'd imbued within them would be needed to soften the loss that he'd receive from performing this enchantment.

Blackthorne spoke in a slow, measured, tone in order to properly elucidate the incantation for the jolt spell. As he did so, a vision of his sword beginning to glow with a baleful purple light appeared within his mind. The glow grew brighter in its intense luminosity and soon skittering arcs of crackling black lightning began to radiate outward from the mental sword.

A minor tug on his body in various locations was the first sign that something began to take form in the reality beyond his eyelids. Soon, he could feel the painful burning sensation once again. His life essence was being drawn from his body to become the fuel for the spell that he imbued within his blade.

Blackthorne panted heavily when he finished his labors. Immediately, he pulled out another disgusting onion corpse and devoured it. He felt slightly better on a physical level, but he was beyond tired of eating the damnable things. Worse, only half of his health remained. It would be a good half hour before he was relatively safe to travel once more.

A grin rose upon his lips and he checked his weapon with great excitement. His eyes widened. His breath quickened slightly, and he nodded his head at a job reasonably well done. The experiment did not turn out badly at all.

Copper Sword of Jolting!

Equipped: Hand[1]

Weight: 3.5

Weapon Type: Short Sword

Attack Power: 4

Quality: Standard

Structural Force Limit: +1

Durability: 20/20

Hardness: 8

Equipment Requirements:

Strength: 9

Agility: 9

Special Options:

Rage Lightning

Duration: 30 Minutes/ 3 strikes

“Now that’s great.” He did not like the automatic part of the usage, though. The first three strikes that connected with an opponent would unleash the power. He studied each of the skills that he chose during the first dream, and in even greater detail once he awakened.

Higher grade enchantments would allow the wielder to activate the power inherent within the item at will, or under certain special conditions, and without limit during the effect duration period.

The effect duration would last far longer as well, at a higher skill level. Still, despite the low-end nature of the ability currently, automatic usage was better than random usage. There was no way to know when the power would activate if the usage condition was random.

Blackthorne sheathed his blade then nodded. He was well pleased by the outcome of his training and experimentation. “So far everything works like it was supposed to work.”

Knowledge regarding the methodologies for usage of his skills was directly implanted within his mind during the first dream, but that did not mean that he believed it would work. Now he knew that the skill information embedded within him acted in accordance with how this world actually worked.

After sheathing his sword, he set about sorting through his bracelets. He wanted to find the absolute best items among them. The rest of them would be placed into his bag to be used for further experimentation at a later time.

He wore the two best bracelets among the lot, and then equipped both them and his armor once more. He stored the rest. They would make for good synergy fodder later. Right now, he would focus on making more bracelets until he could either not remain awake in the dream world any longer, or until he awoke naturally in the real world.

Blackthorne the mighty mage of grass weaving completed another eighteen bracelets before something truly interesting happened. Upon finishing his most recent verdant creation, a soft and undeniably sweet feminine voice whispered in his ear, “Your skill in jewelry crafting has increased.”

Alarmed by the sudden intrusion upon his silent work, he searched the area with apprehensive but curious eyes. The strange and intense moment passed once he realized what actually happened. He had received this world’s equivalent of a system message! During the first dream he was told that the goddess spoke to the people whenever they showed promise. The sweet, yet abrupt, words were an announcement of his increase in skill level.

Brief pause was given as he considered the ramifications, and then he checked his skill list. There was little difference to behold, but the corner of his lip did slightly slip upward at the sight of his change in skill level.

TERTIARY SKILLS

Synergy

Rank: 1

Jewelry Crafting

Rank: 2

Enchanting

Rank: 1

Alchemy

Rank: 1

[Empty Slot]

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"Yeah. This set-up should work out well for me," he said with a nod of his head.

During the first dream, or the tutorial as he liked to call it, Blackthorne sifted through the available skills. He chose the ones that he felt meshed well together. The end result was a dark knight sort of character, though he was more of a mage than knight in his estimation since magic was his primary skill-set and talent.

In truth, Blackthorne actually considered his current profession to be more of a tank mage, a heavy armor wearing destructive magic spell caster. It was a rare option in games except for paladin and dark knight characters. Those character types tended to be more knight than magic user, however.

Mages who could properly wear heavy armor and wield swords were of much greater rarity, and that rarity was often due to reasons related to game balance. The nature and capacity of his skills merged quite succinctly, and gave lie to the typical concepts of game balance. It was almost as though the dream world did not concern itself with creating a balanced game concept.

Arcane Ring mastery allowed him to charge rings with vital energy. This was useful for anything that the system claimed to be a ring style item, including bracelets and anklets. Necklaces, piercings, and earrings did not count. Each of them were part of their own arcane accessory skill.

Choosing them would be redundant since he could only link with three accessories at most, anyway. Until he developed dedicated armor slots, or an extraordinarily good accessory outside of his skill-set came his way, spending the skill points on acquiring another arcane accessory skill would be detrimental.

His other skills were of great use as well, in his endeavors. Despite his current weakness he already saw their potential.

Synergy allowed him to combine items in order to create new items. Enchantments would boost his attack and defense since his combat skills were lower than his magical damage. Jewelry crafting allowed him to create the accessories he would use to store his life force for future spells. At some point alchemy would allow him to create potions and other items that would help immensely.

His musings and ephemeral daydreams were cast aside with a shake of the head. He had business to attend to and did not want to waste what little time he had.

“I hope I can get better materials soon,” he said after considering the situation.

Blackthorne gathered the materials that were readily available then made several more bracelets over the course of another hour. There were a few more of the superior versions now, but none of the newly created items were better than what he currently wore. He stuffed everything into his bag and then tied it. There was precious little space left.

The bag was a strange, but useful item. When it was empty it was quite small. However, it stretched when things were added. Eventually it was three times longer and twice as large. It looked slightly ridiculous hanging from his belt. He did not mind, however. It was free and unlike his sword and cuirass it would not disappear in a few weeks.

There was little else to do after he finished his crafting skill work. He was tired, exhausted really, but he was also loathe to leave this world. There was something pristine, a certain innocent pure about this reality that he truly enjoyed. The real world was filled with assholes, hypocrisy, and people who always seemed to want to take what belonged to another whether through violence or guilt-laden manipulation.

Of course, given the fact that crass humanity had been brought into this dream-like existence, this world was now filled with assholes as well. Billions of people from Earth existed here at any given time of the day.

No one knew how big this place was, but it seemed to be much larger than the waking world, as there were large sections of the world where people had appeared and claimed not to have met someone from Earth. So far, Blackthorne lived a similar existence. He'd only met a few people total, and none seemed to be from Earth.

Blackthorne sighed softly then gripped the dirt. It did not matter whether this world was pure or not. It was his. This place might be a dream, but it was his dream. Throughout most of his life he longed to be reborn in a place where he was not just a poor fat bastard who let the world run over him. He desired a place where the nightmare existence that he experienced could be forgotten like it was the bad dream.

Dirt slipped through the fingers of his upraised hand. It was quite fine, like sand. As that sand-like earth slipped through his fingers, he thought keenly about both it and the life that he had lived to this point. This time everything would be different. This time, he would be different.