Ilaria watched as Ray walked out of the village gates. She was a little bit upset to see him go. Even though it had only been a few days, she felt like he could be a good friend for life. They just seemed to get along. She turned and walked back into town with the rest of the group in tow.

“Well, we can’t let him catch up to us so easily, how about we hunt some higher level monsters” Ilaria said to the rest of the group.

The group looked excited. They hadn’t been on a proper hunt in a long time as they had been busy dealing with the political nature of Finrial. They walked out the other end of the village and into the mountains.

“By the way Ilaria, how’s your training been going lately?” Arj asked.

“Honestly, it could be better. I feel like I’ve hit a wall. It has been difficult finding the motivation to level lately. I’ve been doing my best for the clan, but father thinks I should focus on being a diplomat”

“What do you want to do?”

Ilaria pondered the question. She brought up her character sheet while doing so.

Name:

Ilaria Finrial

More Info +

Race:

Dark Elf (F)

Level:

35 (F)

Stats

Strength

20

Dexterity

105

Agility

37

Body

20

Vitality

20

Intelligence

20

Mind

20

Luck

20

Unallocated Points

0

Titles

Elven Princess, Ranged Elite, Born for Death,

Coins

Arkus System

8,523

Arkus Bar

9,625

Arkus Sphere

2

“I mean, I want to be a ranger. I’ve always been good with the bow, and I’ve been dumping my points into dexterity. It just suits me you know?”

Alif and Rayleigh both laughed at this.

“Yeah, I still remember when you were just five years old, and your grandfather gave you a short bow. You were so excited to use it and accidently shot him in the foot.”

“Guys… Why bring that up” Ilaria said embarrassed.

The group just laughed as they walked into the cave entrance.

***

As Ray was walking out of town, he decided to allocate his 5 unallocated points. He didn’t want to be fighting a monster without being in optimal condition. He thought about the advice of getting each stat to 10 and decided it might be a good idea. At some point he felt that he would have to put points into each stat anyway.

Ray also threw out spreading the stats one point on each item for the short term. Until he was comfortable knowing what each stat did, he decided it would be best to focus on getting a stat to level 10.

He also had his equipment to consider. He only had a basic dagger and very basic armour. Ray felt there wasn’t too much point putting a bunch of points into Strength. It may slightly increase his damage but with a dagger type weapon, it probably wouldn’t be very efficient.

Similarly, he decided against any more Luck or Mind for the short term. Luck because he was already at 15 and still had no idea what it did and Mind because he didn’t have any combat active skills. If Body increased Health, Mind was likely to increase Mana.

In the end, Ray decided to get his Agility to 10 first. He felt that was likely to relate to moving or reacting faster to situations. Something Ray was sorely lacking at the moment. He also felt that it was likely to help him attack faster. Using a dagger; it was unlikely that he would kill a beast in one hit. It was more likely he would have to inflict small wounds over a period of time and make the enemy bleed to death.

He opened his character sheet and allocated the points. He did this one by one and each point tested a series of movements to see if he could discern anything different.

Name:

Ray Atton

More Info +

Race:

Human-Error (F)

Level:

2 (F)

Stats

Strength

5

Dexterity

5

Agility

10

Body

6

Vitality

5

Intelligence

6

Mind

5

Luck

15

Unallocated Points

0

Titles

Outcast (Unique 1/1)

Coins

Arkus System

2

Upon allocating the fifth point to bring his Agility to 10, he noticed a very slight change. He felt faster, but it seemed more to do with movement then being deft with a blade. He took note of this as maybe dexterity may end up being the better option if dealing with weapon mastery.

Once Ray finished allocating his points, he decided to move forward and left the weird village biome. He was now alone in the woods surrounding the village. He knew that this area must be relatively safe as when he was captured by Ilaria’s group, they were not attacked by any beasts or monsters. Thus, he decided to travel here in hopes of hunting small monsters and learning about the System.

Ray began walking back towards what he had hoped was his initial death location. He wanted to start there as a base. He had learned that the water he drank was called siltvelt. It was essentially a poisonous water on Arkus that could be boiled to create fresh water. The impurities in the water were a magical compound that could also be used to make poison potions after boiling and filtering.

Not many adventurers bothered with this as their belief is that it was time consuming to simply get water. Siltvelt was not generally harvested as aside from its poison qualities, there didn’t seem to be any benefits. Ray on the other hand, thought that this would make a powerful addition to his arsenal. If it virtually immediately killed humans on ingestion, maybe it could be used to fester cuts or kill on contact with say… a dagger.

Within about thirty minutes of walking, Ray made his first major mistake in adventuring. He sat down, took a sip from his drink and lost track of his surroundings. As he was fetching some of the food supplies he had received, Ray started hearing low growls behind the bush ahead of him.

Ray slowly drew his dagger from his belt and stood up. Luckily for him, the beasts seemed to be wary of him. They did not immediately attack when he had dropped his guard. This also worried Ray however. It meant the beasts were capable of intelligent thought.

Ray moved his back towards a tree to cut off potential flanking manoeuvres in case there were multiple beasts. He then slowly dropped the supplies he had taken out of his bag into the centre of the clearing he had sat down in and waited.

After about a minute of low growls, Ray noticed 3 creatures that resembled large black cats with sleek black fur and sharp claws slowly approach. Rat didn’t want to make too many movements just in case the beasts became enraged and started attacking him at once. As they were approaching slowly, Ray used identify on each of the beasts in turn.

Identify Used

Ravenous Feline

Level 2

Touched by the System. This agile cat can quickly decapitate prey with its sharp claws.

Ravenous Feline

Level 1

Touched by the System. This agile cat can quickly decapitate prey with its sharp claws.

Ravenous Feline Alpha

Level 5

Touched by the System. This agile cat is the alpha of the group. Not to be mixed with its brethren, the alpha is stronger and more intelligent.

“At the end of it, you’re still beasts…. Come at me, I can do this” Ray mumbled under his breath.

Something must have triggered in the alpha because immediately it sent the two weaker cats at him. Ray tried to keep both of them within his sights and lifted his dagger slightly higher. Unfortunately for him, the felines split and as he looked at the one going right, the left one pounced at him. Ray managed to life his left bracer just in time to stop the claws from reaching his neck.

The feline that jumped at him swung its paw a second time. Ray blocked this swing with his right bracer and attempted to swing the dagger into the unguarded underbelly of the feline. Ray missed. He felt pain show through his upper back as teeth sank into his right shoulder.

[You have been inflicted with: Bleeding (Minor). You will take 2 health points of damage every ten seconds indefinitely, or until wound is bandaged]

Ray let out a yelp of surprise at the bite. Fortunately for him, even though it was a sneak attack, he had been able to handle it without much further damage to himself. Ray quickly learned the felines patterns. They were pack hunters and so, killing the alpha would likely stop the fights. Unfortunately, Ray was extremely experienced in fighting, to the point where anyone watching must have thought he looked like a child.

Ray managed to avoid another jumping bite from behind by ducking. As the feline flew overhead, he stabbed his dagger upwards. He was rewarded with a large gash through the under-belly of the cat. To his horror though, he couldn’t keep hold of the dagger. It had become lodged in the cat as the beast took a few steps before toppling over dead. Further, the alpha had decided to join the fray and immediately left a giant gash on Rays left leg, just above the knee.

[You have been inflicted with: Bleeding (Minor) - stacked. You will now take 5 health points of damage every ten seconds indefinitely, or until wounds are bandaged]

There was nothing for it, Ray would die if he didn’t do something. He charged straight at the corpse of the downed feline while shielding his head as much as possible. Both cats gave chase and left deeper and more serious wounds across his body. Ray managed to grab the dagger and rip it out in one swift motion. He then turned and threw the dagger straight at the alpha.

Ray didn’t expect the dagger throw to work but he had gotten lucky. Right as he had thrown the weapon, the alpha had pounced towards him. It had opened its jaw to take yet another bite towards Ray’s neck. The dagger sailed straight into the alphas mouth and pierced its upper jaw, right into the brain. Before the alpha was killed, Ray was rewarded with a snapping thud of its teeth digging into his outstretched arm.

Ray cried out in pain. He hadn’t expected the jaws to clamp shut. He was starting to feel extremely weak and saw a blinking red plus icon in his peripherals. Ray didn’t have time to deal with that. He flung the dead alpha cat off his arm and raised his fists. He didn’t have any other weapons so hoped it would be enough.

“That’s right, run away pussy!” Ray yelled as he noticed the final feline scattering through the trees.

Ray quickly flashed up his status menu when he felt safe to do so. He knew he was struggling but didn’t realise how badly.

Health

26/110 (-5 health per ten seconds due to bleeding)

Mana

50/50

Buffs

None

Debuffs

Bleeding (Minor – 2 wounds stacked)

Ray panicked. He only had around 1 minute before he would bleed to death. He quickly tore strips of his shirt and tightly bandaged his major wounds. He then flashed his character sheet up and allocated every point of his two levels to vitality, hoping it might help repair wounds faster. He didn’t put them into body because he wasn’t sure that his health would increase while wounded.

Health

21/110 (Regeneration: 3.3hp/hour)

Mana

50/50

Buffs

None

Debuffs

None

Ray sighed in relief, hobbled over to a tree and sat down. He was already exhausted. He knew he wasn’t in good shape to move. He would have no choice but to wait. The problem was, he was in the open. He needed to find a safe spot to hunker down, at least until he regained enough health to feel comfortable again. As he stood, he could die in a single hit by probably virtually any beast right now.

Ray got up and went to bring his knife into his inventory. He accidentally absorbed the entire alpha felines body as well.

“Well, that’s handy” Ray muttered to himself. He went and grabbed the other body. Before searching for a suitable place to hunker down. He found a small cave just north of his location in the direction the feline had run off to. As it had turned out, it was the den of the felines.

He noticed the third level 1 feline hunkering in a corner making whimpering and pathetic meowing noises. Ray used identify on the feline again

Identify Used

Panther Cat

Level 1

This kitten has recently lost its leader. It is scared and alone.

[Congratulations, Skill: Identify has levelled to 3]

“I’m sorry I killed your family, I’m all alone too” Ray said. He brought out some raw meat he had gathered in town and left it near the cat. It wasn’t lost on him that the cat was no longer a Ravenous Feline or touched by the System. He supposed this was probably its natural state.

After watching the cat for some time whimpering, he noticed it had gained some wits. It slowly got onto its feet, and warily scooped the meat into its jaw. Instead of running away though, the cat slowly moved closer to Ray.

Ray moved his hand out slowly as to not scare the cat. He gave it a quick scratch behind the ears and smiled. This thing wasn’t dangerous at all in this state. The cat rubbed it’s neck against his hand and started purring before settling into his lap. After getting comfortable and being on alert for around an hour, Ray lay down to rest for the night.

Character sheet at the end of chapter 8.

Name:

Ray Atton

More Info +

Race:

Human-Error (F)

Level:

4 (F)

Stats

Strength

5

Dexterity

5

Agility

10

Body

6

Vitality

15

Intelligence

6

Mind

5

Luck

15

Unallocated Points

0

Titles

Outcast (Unique 1/1)

Coins

Arkus System

122