Fifteen minutes of walking later, and the excitement of the new changes was starting to fade. I still felt better from the attribute changes, and the wounds I’d taken were still slowly healing over. And of course, the sword was still a brilliant reminder of the changes that had happened. Instead, it felt more like the changes were slowly instilling themselves into me. As though my body was adjusting to them, and so they felt more normal and natural.

I was mostly trying not to think about it as I walked. Instead I focused on making sure nothing snuck up on me. I’d learned my lesson from the last fight, and I was listening just as intently as I was looking. No skeleton was going to get in an attack from behind me if I could help it. It was due to this attention that I noticed it when it approached.

Undead Skeleton - Level 19

This one looked almost identical to the first one I fought, oh so long ago in the swamp. Bare bones except for the sword gripped tight. I made sure to check there was no blue spark in this one, and there wasn’t. The fight was anticlimactically short.

Sidestepping the first wild swing, I brought around my sunlight sword and brought it down onto the back of the skeleton. With insulting ease, the edge sliced through and left behind instantaneous scorch marks on the bone. I couldn’t do anything but blink in surprise as the bones fell to the ground.

[Ding!] You have defeated a Level 19 Undead Skeleton! You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy 5 levels above you!

Reading over the message, I took note that it was the first time that killing one of the skeletons hadn’t given me a level. Murmuring to myself, “Ah well.. It had to happen sometime, didn’t it..” Glancing back at the skeleton now scorched, I hesitated. “I feel like this might be a bit more powerful than I thought…”

Even while I forced myself to keep moving, I thought over how the power of the swing was likely calculated. The sword itself used my intelligence and dexterity for its own damage, which were both getting closer to fifty. After that, Warrior of the Sun boosted both the physical and magical damage dealt by 50%. And even after that, my Solar Affinity and class bonuses boosted both solar skills overall…

Thinking about it and adding together all the bonuses, my sword was 550% more potent than it would normally be based on just my attributes alone… Knowing that, I nodded my head. Yeah, I could see why it was stupidly strong then.

Over the next few hours, I started encountering skeletons more and more commonly. Luckily, they remained at roughly the same levels, which let me defeat them with one or two strikes. To my surprise, it wasn’t all that long before I reached level twenty. I looked over the messages populating my vision with satisfaction.

[Ding!] You have leveled up to Level 20! You have gained +3 Attribute Points!

[Ding!] Warrior of the Sun has leveled up to Level 3!

[Ding!] Sunlight Sword has leveled up to Level 2!

[Ding!] Sunlight Sword has leveled up to Level 3!

Would you like to select a Skill and allocate your Attribute Points?

I spared a moment to think. I assumed that Sunlight Sword leveled faster because it had a more direct usage, or because of something else I didn’t know about. Either way, it had caught up with Warrior of the Sun.

When selecting my third skill, I didn’t even let myself look at the options. I just chose Healing Sunlight before anything else. A moment later, a similar… reorganizing feeling swept through me as the new skill took root. I waited for a minute or two for it to settle before attempting to use it. A subtle glow out of the corner of my eye surprised me for a moment before I turned to look.

Looking down at my arm, I could see a bright glow similar to my sword surging through a veinlike pattern under my skin. As it reached the three cuts where the skeleton had slashed me, the glow became visible in open air for a short moment. As it did, I couldn’t help but feel my jaw drop. My skin started knitting together, the muscle underneath surging back into place. Within a short moment the, admittedly shallow, cuts were just gone.

As soon as the surprise ran its course, I hurriedly glanced at my health. Seeing it full, I smiled and shook my head. “This is absolutely bullshit, but it’s great..” Looking back down at my blade and at the most recent of the skeletons killed by it, I suddenly frowned.

I’d never exactly been the bravest person in the world, but.. Just over the past few days alone, I’d fought more and more dangerously than I ever thought I would. And despite it all… I was fine. Better than fine, I was smiling and laughing sometimes. The thought stopped me cold. Was I acting the same?

My eyes were locked on the skeleton on the ground. It took me almost five minutes to snap out of the horrible daisy chain of thoughts I was following. “No. It doesn’t matter… I’m here now, and dead back there.” I spoke at full volume, attempting to convince myself. “If I start double guessing everything, I’ll never do anything here.” A thought struck me, “And in anycase, maybe I should be a different person here.. My old self would have died to that first skeleton.. Only pushing forward through them has kept me alive..” I let a surge of healing magic flow through me, the warmth soothing me slightly. “This is my life now, own it.”

With the finality present in my final words, I tore my eyes from the scorched bones and began walking once more. I quickly fell into the now familiar rhythm of checking my surroundings as I walked. An hour passed, while the greatest threat that presented itself was my encroaching thoughts and increasingly dry throat.

After the veritable deluge of skeletons that had started assaulting me not long ago, I couldn’t help the suspicion. If I had half a brain, the sudden silence meant I was either leaving the fields, or there was a much stronger opponent waiting for me…

Surprising even me for a moment, neither option was necessarily great. While I would much rather the first than the second, even the first wasn’t necessarily ideal. While I absolutely needed to secure food and water, I had no real way of knowing if the next place I’d find would have that. If I was absolutely honest with myself, I was mostly relying on luck to eventually put food and water in my path. I was self aware enough to admit that I had no idea how to even begin living off the land.

And since no obviously better paths had presented themselves to me, I continued on my path forward. I didn’t have near the knowledge or experience in this world to be able to tell if the thinning of skeletons was a good or bad thing. In a way, I’d slowly come to suspect that it might even just mean nothing. Walking for another hour in as straight a path as you could without encountering anything had a tendency to do that.

I’d been walking for close to three hours without any more encounters, when I saw something large and tall cast its shadow through the thick mist. Stopping immediately, I quickly glanced around me once more. Not seeing anything else in my immediate surroundings, I crept closer. Coming into view, was a spire of some kind. Perhaps a dozen feet across and at least close to a hundred tall. It seemed to be formed of a type of gray stone.

Spiraling across the surface, was a strange pattern. Almost as though someone had carved into the stone and then filled it in with some kind black metal.. The metal appeared in fractals in some places, and spirals in others. It was as though it was simply laid in as many different patterns and shapes as possible.

Walking closer, I started to try and move around it. Examining it under the light from my sword, I couldn’t actually find any one pattern that I recognized. Every other moment I would think I recognized something from the corner of my eye, but when I looked at it I realized it was entirely alien. Stepping closer, I reached my hand out to trace along the metal.

The moment my hand touched the surface of the spire, a cold blast of wind slammed outwards. Instantly, I felt a bone deep chill soak into me. Backpedaling as fast as I could, I barely had a moment to recognize that the everpresent mists had retreated with the blast. As much as I wanted to see just how far they had retreated, my attention shot back towards the spire.

Coalescing in front of it, was a figure of dark shadows and black, drifting fog. I could only barely make out the hints of a humanoid figure within. Thin spindly limbs, the hands twisted into sharp claws. Where the head was, all I could see was the occasional flash of sharpened teeth, bared in my direction. Before I could even identify it, I felt the now familiar guiding knowledge of Warrior of the Sun snap into place.

Wight of the Fields - Level ??

[Ding!] Identify has leveled up to Level 3!

Wight of the Fields - Level 48

“Shockingly good timing on that..” I muttered to myself, staring at the Wight. I took deep breaths, trying to ignore the quickly rising fear I felt. I was about to try and talk myself up when it suddenly surged towards me. Warrior of the Sun was all that let me bring up my sword in time to deflect the first claw as it slammed towards my chest. My arm shook with the impact.

As I threw myself backwards, trying to get out of its reach for just a moment, it’s other claw shot forward. I barely held in a scream of pain as it ripped across my leg. Immediately I began healing my leg. After an infinitesimal moment, I suddenly felt as though I had been entombed in molasses and now I had been lifted out. As the warmth of the healing spread throughout me, the bone deep chill was pressed out.

Breathing fast, my eyes narrowed as the difference became clear. The Wight was no longer moving almost faster than I could react, but simply faster than the skeletons now. Shifting my weight so my wounded leg didn’t have to support my weight while healing, I watched the Wight rear back for a moment.

Recognizing the movement from right before it rushed me the first time, I lowered my sword to near my left leg, the one that it’d wounded. When it charged for me again, I used my right leg to throw me to the left. As I launched sideways, I swung hard towards the Wight. Since it’s claws were outstretched to strike me, it couldn't get them back in time to deflect the blow.

My momentum sideways ripped the sword from my hand as it got stuck in the Wight’s side, before it dissolved into nothing from losing contact with me. For all that I had landed a hit, I still grunted in pain as I landed on my left leg. Without looking down, I knew it had to have already healed most of the way, because it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I would expect it to.

Scrambling to my feet, I quickly resummoned my blade. Looking to the Wight, I saw it was already almost at me, loping on all four limbs like a grotesque animal. Warrior of the Sun kicked back in without my even noticing.

Slashing downwards as I spun right, the very tip of the blade cut across it’s back. The Wight made a horrible howl, shaking me for a moment, fear rushing through my veins in unnatural strength.

Taking advantage of my momentary stumble, it lunged back up onto it’s legs and slashed across my chest and upper arm before I had recovered fully. As the surge of healing magic drove the unnatural fear out, I barely managed to fend off another claw strike.

Relying on my healing, I simply stumbled backwards under a hail of claws. Every now and then, one of it’s strikes would hit me with a glancing blow, opening shallow cuts.

Finally, the major tears healed and I slowly started to defend more fully. Deflecting a claw to the side, I dodged to the side faster than usual and used my movement to draw the blade along the Wight’s side. I was breathing hard, but couldn’t let up.

Using it’s momentary recoil from the cut, I quickly followed with a hard downwards strike. Landing it on it’s forearm instead of it’s claws, I watched as it nearly cut all the way through before stopping. Without hesitating, my other hand came up and landed on the swords hilt as I shoved it forward with all my might. I forced the sword through the wound it had caused and stabbed it directly into the chest of the Wight.

It screamed right into my face, but I could already feel it weakening. At the same time I twisted the blade, the Wight managed to rip it’s other claw across my side, tearing through the flesh. I let out a pained cry, at the same time that I heard a horribly familiar dinging in my mind.

My eyes were closed when I fell to the ground, resting on my knees. Letting my sword dissolve again, one hand was on my side and the other held me upright. I could feel that my mana was lower than it's ever been, but I didn’t let up on the healing. Just before I could feel I’d have run out of mana, my side closed up.

Breathing raggedly, I simply knelt on the ground for a number of minutes. Finally, I shifted over to sit on the ground, facing the spire. Opening my eyes, I noticed that the Wight hadn’t left anything behind. Except… that wasn’t quite true.

With a slightly shaking hand, I reached out and picked it up. A small, shadowy bead was resting on the ground.

Pearl of the Wight - A small condensed bead of shadow magic, this pearl is occasionally left behind a defeated Wight.

“Well..” I muttered, and I could hear the exhaustion in my voice, “I’m not sure if that was entirely worth it...” I groaned as my muscles complained at me. Then, I remembered the dinging noise that had accompanied the Wight’s death. “Ah what the hell.. Let’s see what that got me..”

[Ding!] You have defeated a Level 48 Wight of the Fields! You have gained bonus experience from defeating an enemy 28 levels above you!

[Ding!] Warrior of the Sun has leveled up to Level 4!

[Ding!] Sunlight Sword has leveled up to Level 4!

[Ding!] Healing Sunlight has leveled up to Level 2!

[Ding!] Healing Sunlight has leveled up to Level 3!

[Ding!] You have leveled up to Level 21! You have gained +3 Attribute Points!

[Ding!] You have leveled up to Level 22! You have gained +3 Attribute Points!

...

[Ding!] You have leveled up to Level 31! You have gained +3 Attribute Points!

Would you like to select a Skill and allocate your Attribute Points?

“Oh holy fuck.” The shock over reading it was so complete that I couldn’t even put the right tone of surprise into my words, they just came out monotone. That changed a moment later, “Oh holy fuck!”

I blinked and read it all again, making sure it wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t. “Okay, okay, okay... Just... do the points first...” I increased all of my physical attributes to forty, and still had twenty-six left.. Noticing everything was forty, except attunement that was forty-five, I increased everything to forty-five and had one left over. I had noticed that my health had actually gotten too low for my comfort, so the last one went to vitality.

A massive surge of energy rushed through me. It felt similar to my healing, but fundamentally different. Surprising me, the energy actually helped soothe and rejuvenate my aching muscles. As it faded, I glanced back up at the spire. For a brief moment, it appeared as though nothing had changed. Then I noticed it.

One of the pattern groupings no longer seemed so alien and unfamiliar. Instead, I could see it clearly, the looping and rigid shapes. And more concerning, it had changed from black metal, to an almost white metal. Looking over the whole spire, I could feel my heart sink as I saw the dozens, maybe hundreds of other groupings that stayed as dark black metal.

“Oh son of a..” I mumbled, quickly getting up and moving away from the large stone structure. If every grouping somehow represented one of those things, I wanted no part of it. With a much more comfortable distance from the spire, I noticed again that the mists had been blown back.

Looking around, I could see what had to be almost a hundred meters or so of empty field around the spire. After looking closer for a minute, I could also see that it was ever so slowly rolling back in. “Alright.. Good to know..”

Finally, my attention shifted back to the new skill I could choose. Each and every skill I’d chosen so far had been absolutely critical to keeping me alive in that fight. Without Warrior of the Sun, I never could have defended myself long enough for my healing to do it’s work. And I had my doubts about a regular sword's ability to hurt something like the Wight. My most recent fight had only reinforced the importance of choosing your skills carefully.

That’s why I immediately chose Solar Blast. During the whole fight, my one hand had been entirely useless. Unlike with the skeletons, I hadn’t been able to use it to throw and redirect the Wight. And I had a feeling that Warrior of the Sun would only be even more deadly if I actually had magic to wield with that hand.

I felt the still odd feeling of energy reordering inside me, shifting and morphing for the new skill. A moment later, I could tell that I could use it. With more than a little curiosity and excitement, I opened my palm and held it in front of me. With a heavy slam forward, a visible wave of powerful solar energy surged forward.

While it made no noise, you could feel the overpressure of it passing just nearby. When the cone impacted on the ground, you could see the scorch marks of it’s passing. The heat and solar energy expending itself on whatever it hit. The wave of energy flew through the air, all the way out to nine meters. Staring at my hand, I could feel my eyes were wider than anything I could remember.

“I.. I can do that?!” I exclaimed excitedly. I quickly looked around, finding one of the few loose rocks that could be found. Tossing it up and hitting it with the blast, I laughed when it shot out of sight and into the mists. “This is great!” I laughed again. I quickly decided that magic was fun!

After spending a few minutes enjoying my new magic, I felt the skill click somehow. The energy that always changed when gained a new skill finished shifting. As it did, I felt a sudden influx of knowledge similar to when I’d first chosen Warrior of the Sun. With a surge of panic, I knelt down.

After a minute passed, the surge abated. Relieved I hadn’t passed out again, I quickly poked around to see what that had been. It only took a moment to find the change. I could feel the different ways that Solar Blast could be used with Warrior of the Sun. The ways I could incorporate it into a fight. Blasting an opponent onto the ground and attacking, or blasting back a charging opponent and charging myself. Using it to unbalance enemies larger than me, it went on and on.

Standing back up, I summoned my sword again, intending to test this newfound knowledge out.

“Hey! Unsummon the sword, and stay still!” I heard a muffled voice call out from behind me. NOT in English. I felt my eyes widen.