In the morning I once again climbed out of my safe little cave to the top of the cliff, the mossy plateau, to cook breakfast. After that I settled down on the edge of the cave entrance and watched as the wolf pups played with each other around the resting forms of their parents. While I watched the wolves I started controlling a small pebble only a centimeter or so large to fly around my hand.

I found that controlling one item is was rather easy and tried to add another, it was much harder but I managed to pull it of after a few minutes of trial and error.

This made me wonder how many things I could control at once… Well it’s not like I have some master escape plan, so I set to training my multitasking.

Pebble three and four only took a few minutes to figure out before they were joining their siblings around my hand.

Five took nearly quarter of an hour before I got it right, joining it with it’s fellows was a struggle.

And finally six, it took almost an hour before I could do it without dropping it or having it collide with the other stones. When I finally managed to get it right I felt something within me, break for lack off better words. Into me flowed the knowledge of how to control the Mana, how to move it, but mostly knowledge of how to control multiple streams of Mana at once.

Congratulations! Your skill ‘Mana Manipulation’ has advanced to the first tier.

You have reached level ‘6’

I gaped while my mind digested the information, the six stones now floating around my arms almost subconsciously as I looked at my status screen.

User

Identity - Auden Leymoore/Elf?

layer - 1

Tier - 0

Level - 6/10

Oath

0 - “Magic”

Stats - 2

Perception - 4

Wisdom - 0

Intelligence - 0

Vigilance - 0

Creativity - 0

Skills

Mana Manipulation 1 - 0/20

1 - Parallel Mana Control

Climbing 0 - 8/10

Mana sense 0 - 10/10*

So… if I understand this correctly, all I need to do to get an awesome upgrade to my skill is to do something, new? more advanced? That seems… simple? I stare at the screen a bin longer before I snap back to reality to try out the new techniques I got.

When I try moving the same pebbles that I used previously I find that I can almost effortlessly control eight of them, and I’m not far off from nine either. If the upgrade in my manipulation is this good what if I upgrade my climbing and Mana sense!

I immediately focus my Mana sense, I got an upgrade related to multitasking after practicing the very same thing, so if I train some specific action with my Mana sense I should be able to get the upgrade that I need! But what do I need… yea that’s not that hard, I need range. I can’t even sense more than 40 or so centimeters away from my body. If I want to be able to use it on anything in the future I rather not stand right next to it.

I set my mind to it and start trying to expand the area around me that I use to sense, I try by focusing it on one area and by holding me limbs in different positions, but nothing happens. My overall area has only improved by a centimeter or so after an hour of intense training.

This is taking so long! Maybe certain skills are just harder to level up…

I continue to stretch my senses as much as I can but by the time lunch rolls around I have nothing other that a pinky length improvement in the overall range.

After eating another package of dehydrated food I settle down again and try to use my Mana sense to try to sense the wolves below me. I’m assuming that their glowing teeth were magical since when they grabbed on to the deer with they they went straight through the hide. I add the two forgotten stat points to perception to try to better help me.

And then after another three hour of constant mental strain and when I am close to giving up, it happens.

Congratulations! Your skill ‘Mana Sense’ has advanced to the first tier.

You have reached level ‘7’

YES! I almost black out when my mind gets bombarded with knowledge once again, I try to stand up and notice that the range of my Mana sense has gone up by a decimeter from the half-meter I had managed to train it to earlier. I once again look at my stats

User

Identity - Auden Leymoore/Elf?

layer - 1

Tier - 0

Level - 7/10

Oath

0 - “Magic”

Stats - 1

Perception - 6

Wisdom - 0

Intelligence - 0

Vigilance - 0

Creativity - 0

Skills

Mana Manipulation 1 - 0/20

1 - Parallel Mana Control

Climbing 0 - 8/10

Mana sense 1 - 0/20

1 - Long range sensing

Upgrades people, upgrades! After admiring my status for another couple minutes I turn my mind to the stats tab, although I initially didn’t notice a difference now that I have a six in perception I can say that there is indeed an increase. After adding the previous two points in perception I managed to shortly increase my Mana sense range by about 0.5 to 0.7 centimeters, which was a rather fast improvement compared to the rest on the time I spent training.

So now that I am certain about some of the effects of perception should I try focusing on some of the other stats? Vigilance and creativity are those i am considering the most, since they will probably have the most effect with the current low increase in stats.

And after deliberating about it I decide to put at least two of the remaining stats into creativity since it might help me come up with different applications of my skills, and since vigilance seems like it would also be covered by perception I felt it superfluous to invest into right now.

I add my point in creativity before once again bringing my attention back to my skills, Now I just need to level up climbing.

As I begin climbing up and down different sections of the cliff I sigh, this trip is turning out to be quite the disaster huh… well at least there is magic and mountains to keep me entertained.