Chapter 6

My head was pounding, and my vision was blurry when I woke up. My arm still aching from the injury, but at least I wasn’t in so much pain that I couldn’t concentrate. It took me a few minutes to clear my blurred vision, but once I could see, again I took a look around my campsite. Now in the morning light, I could see my assailants corpse lying fifteen feet away from me. The wolf was massive when it was standing its back must have reached a height of 5 feet. Its paws were the size of dinner plates, and the head was as big as my torso. I was fortunate that it didn’t rip off my whole arm, it could have done so easily.

The messages to level up was still floating in front of me. I quickly navigated to the level up screen and saw that I got two attribute points to spend, form each of my level ups and one skill point for each level up. I decided to add two points into Wisdom and intelligence raising them to twenty. And one in both Constitution and Charisma making them thirteen.

When I got to my skills list, I noticed I had two new skills to pick from.

Pain tolerance: Pain tolerance allows the user to not feel as much pain when injured.

Well not much information there, but I think it will be beneficial

Elemental fire: Elemental fire boosts the skill holders ability to control fire magic and making his or her fire-based magic stronger. This skill also grants its owner fire resistance. 5% boost to fire magic and spell strength per level of the skill, 1% mana reduction to fire magic and spells per level of the skill, 1% fire resistance against fire damage per level of the skill. 0 / 100

In the end, I decided to add two points to Pain tolerance and one point to Elemental fire. Thinking that Elemental fire would be a lot easier and more comfortable train the old fashioned, compared to Pain tolerance.

My Arcane manipulation had also levelled up to level three. But when activated the skill I couldn’t see any immediate change.

When I was done with my levelling up, I went to activate both Pain tolerance and Elemental fire. Immediately I could feel my headache lessen and my arm wasn’t aching as much.

I looked at the dead wolf in front of me and figured I wouldn’t have the worry about hunting for a few days. I used my Arcane manipulation and started to shape my mana into a short narrow blade. Trying to achieve this by gathering mana on top of my palm and compressing it down. But no matter how hard I worked to compress the mana it would not take a solid form. Letting go of the idea of trying to solidify my mana, instead, I decided to form a narrow blade of fire. I was trying to keep it small so it wouldn't drain as much of my mana, but I was still holding it hot enough to cut through the flesh of the wolf.

It took me a few minutes until I was happy with my flaming dagger, now that it was ready I got down to work. My flaming blade managed to cut into the wolfs flesh with almost no resistance, the smell of burning flesh and fur was horrible though. It took me a better part of half an hour to get my pillowcase bag full of meat. Knowing that the meat would spoil before I could finish it all, I decided to try and freeze it. Which turned out to be a simple job with my Arcane manipulation. When I controlled my mana with the skill, it would shape it according to me will. It felt like I was talking to my mana in my head, and it merely listened to what I wanted and made it happen.

After I was done with my work on the wolf, I was ready to continue on my journey. Looking at the broken wall in front of me, I figured it would be an easy enough climb If I climbed up using the broken down rubble, that had fallen down on the ground. I was no professional climber, but I still managed to get up the twenty-foot high wall in five minutes. Once I reached the top and looked to the other side, I was surprised by what I saw.

In front of me, as far as my eyes could see, were ruins of a city. I could see houses in complete ruin, with their roofs collapsed in and only the stone walls still standing. The forest had claimed this city, trees were growing everywhere, and they had grown taller than the ruins were. So this city must have been abandoned for a long time, for centuries most likely. The stone walls of the now ruined houses were covered in vines and moss, and I couldn’t see any signs of recent habitation here, no signs of anyone even trying to reclaim the city.

After looking the ruins over from my vantage point atop the wall. I decided to climb down and start exploring. I got down to street level and walked along a wide street that must have been the main avenue of the abandoned city. I kept peeking inside the ruined houses along my way but saw nothing but foliage growing in the interior. The only thing left from the houses were just the stone walls, no signs of any furniture or wooden support beams. Few of the houses had some runes carved into stones above the front doorways, but I couldn't read any of them.

After a few hours of exploring and finding nothing, I heard a scraping noise coming from one of the houses that I hadn’t explored yet. I stopped moving for a few seconds, trying to listen for it again, but I heard nothing. I slowly started to creep closer to the house where I thought noise had come from. I activated my Survival skill and prepared to cast Pillar of Flame. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened last night, this time I was going to be prepared to attack. My Survival skill showed a faint track of an animal going into the house, but I wasn’t sure what kind of animal made these tracks, whatever it was, it had long claws, and it walked on four legs while dragging a tail along the ground behind it.

I crept to one of the windows so I could take a peek inside.

What I saw inside was a large lizard. It was at least nine feet long from head to tail and greyish green in colour and resembled a huge komodo dragon. While I was looking through the window, I heard a faint hissing sound coming from behind me.

I quickly turned around and shot my prepared spell at it, the flames from my spell let out a loud roaring sound. What I hit was a second Komodo dragon, that was tried to sneaking behind me. It let out a loud hissing whine as it burned. As I was cooking the second Komodo dragon, I started to hear more hissing and scraping sounds coming from houses all around me, as well as the window on my back. I turned around and saw the first Komodo swiftly climbing through the window, and I instant cast my spell again. The Komodo dragon's body, fell down lifeless to the ground. I could still hear the hissing and scraping sounds coming from all around me, so I decided to run back to the main street.

It only took me a few seconds to get back to the main street. Once there, I turned and faced the house where I saw the first Komodo dragon, to my chagrin I could see at least ten more of them climbing out of the ruins around it. I quickly took another shot at the closest komodo, and it fell down dead. But rest of them were still charging at me so I figured that my best option to deal with them, would be to lure them into an alleyway so I could kill them all with only one spell. So I ran to the closest alley, with the most intact looking structures around it and waited for them all to follow me. And sure enough, they did, I started to gathering mana in my hand until I saw it glow with the yellow light again and when the nearest komodo dragon was only five feet from me, I released my prepared spell.

The Pillar of Flame was wide enough to burn walls on either side of the alley, let alone the charging lizards. I continued to channel mana into the spell until I saw the stone walls of the alley glow bright white before starting to melt. My spell had melted a large hole through a house on the opposite side of the main street.

Congratulation! You have levelled up! Congratulation! You have levelled up! Congratulation! Elemental fire has levelled up! Congratulation! Survival has levelled up! Congratulations! Pillar of Flame has levelled up!

I quickly went to level up myself. I added two points in both Intelligence and Wisdom. As for my skill points, I added both of them to Pain tolerance. After I was done with levelling up, I heard a crack of thunder and it started to rain.

Character sheet Name Varis Class Archmage Level 6 Age 23 Race Human Gender Male Attributes Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Constitution 13 Wisdom 22 Intelligence 22 Charisma 13 Status Health 180 / 180 Stamina 180 / 180 Mana 540 / 540 Overflow Mana 540 / 540 Mana regeneration 5,4 per minute Skill Unarmed fighting 1 / 100 Arcane Manipulation 3 / 100 Spellcraft 2 / 100 Mana Overflow 3 / 100 Survival 2 / 100 Persuasion 1 / 100 Elemental fire 2 / 100 Pain tolerance 4 / 100 Foci Fast Learner: You accumulate knowledge faster than most people. You gain experience towards levelling up your class level and skill levels four times as fast. Titles Guest: You are a guest to a new world, as a guest you have been given guest access to World Information System. If you require help using our system, please contact one of our helpful Admins. First user: As the first user you gain access to Unique class, one free Foci from class Foci, 10%xp bonus from all sources, additional Skill and Attribute points during character creation. Spells known

Pillar of Flame lvl.2

You release a pillar of flame from your hand. Size and strength of the pillar is dependant on how much mana you feed into it.

Casting time: instantaneous

Mana cost: Casters choice

Components: Somatic