“…Amazing…”

With the octopus finally taken down, the seas turned calm once more. The body of the lifeless octopus slowly drifted away, carried by the small waves moving across the waters. He was left alone once more.

Well, the crab’s here and all, but…

Now, with the cold breeze washing over his torn and bloodied shirt, Alex lied there on the sandy bed with his eyes staring straight at the clouds. His ocean blue eyes reflected the brilliant blue sky above.

As another cold breeze passed over his slightly closed wound, he cringed as he felt the pain all over his chest. Luckily, he hadn’t moved at all since the defeat of that giant octopus.

He showed a faint smile as he recalled that.

But after he survived the encounter, he was left with a wounded body, with a big wound opened on his chest and some more wounds on his two arms. With time, the wounds started getting clogged up by the freezing blood, but they were still very dangerous to his long-term survival.

But exactly because he couldn’t move, it allowed him to focus on his new skill, [Magic Manipulation]. If what the description said was true, that means that he should now be able to control his magic voluntarily.

By that thought, he focused on what he had. Obviously, he couldn’t control magic yet. Heck, he doesn’t even know what magic looks like! But putting that aside, he still does have magic circulating in him, and it was present in his blood, that was the one thing he managed to notice.

Although he had just got anemia from the huge loss of blood, there was still quite some blood left in his veins. Using that, he began simply moving the magic to several different places in his body.

He started by focusing his magic into his fist, and then to his legs, to his bloodied chest, which surprisingly decreased the pain, and then all around to his whole body.

Because he was stuck like this, he was unable to test out what moving the magic to his limbs would do, but he knew, that circulating his magic evenly throughout his whole body was the most effective out of all.

For a simple description, once he evenly circulated his magic, he began feeling odd. The world around him seemed to slow down, as if he was a guy from the matrix or something. His senses perked up to superhuman levels, allowing him to notice any small changes in the environment.

Can he perhaps shoot a laser beam from his fists?!

…Maybe not yet.

A man can dream though!

That advancement aside, he really was unable to do anything now. His whole body felt numb, and nearly impossible to move. He could move his fingers, but only slightly.

Letting out a silent sigh, he brought up his status.

Status: Damian Alexander Lv 10

Health: 23/120 (+40)

Mana: 51/165 (+55)

Strength: 42 (+14)

Intelligence: 60 (+20)

Resistance: 51 (+17)

Agility: 57 (+18) (+3)

Skills:

{Illustrator} Rank 1 (14%)

{Blood Borne} Rank 2 (%)

[Agility] Rank 1 (13%)

[Cleaving] Rank 1 (05%)

[Blood Hound] Rank 1 (09%)

[Magic Manipulation] Rank 1 (05%)

[[Concentration]] Rank 1 (01%)

Titles:

(Blood Borne)|

[[Concentration]]

Rank 1

Evenly circulating magic throughout the body increases reaction speed, thinking speed, and a slight boost to reflex.

Is a skill derived from [Magic Manipulation].

01% to Rank 2

Although he already knew, having that skill description always helps. Oddly, this time, he didn’t freak out as much when he saw a new skill pop up in his skills list. Perhaps after seeing him gaining many skills so quickly, he began to feel numb from the shock.

Was that a good thing?

Yeah…Probably.

“Hah…Guess I won’t be moving for a while.”

The thing is, he won’t be staying there for a while. He’ll get up soon enough…

Meanwhile,

Not far from Alex, but far enough out of his field of vision, a great storm was brewing. Thundering clouds were circling around, forming a giant vortex in the murky and dark sky.

Purple lightning jumped from one cloud to another. The wind was getting hectic and unpredictable. The leaves from the palm trees blew violently, if the tree hadn’t got sucked by the wind, that is.

*Wwwwuuuuuuoooooo*

And then, in the midst of that purple thunderstorm, a loud and long sound was heard coming out of the violent waters. Slowly, the water began rising, as a large and imposing figure appeared out of the turning seas.

With its large mouth open, its sharp teeth were wide open to view. The giant fins on its side sent waves, adding onto the already hectic wave storm. The whale had two tails, covered in hideous spikes, which were most likely its own bones. Yikes.

The whale had no eyes, but it was able to easily determine that something was going on above in the sky.

After looking at it for a while, it dove back down into the ocean. Swimming through the turbulent tides, it swam away from the vortex, towards to the calm area near to it, which happens to be where Alex was located.

It seems like Alex will be in trouble soon!

…………

After about 4 hours of lying down in pure and utter boredom, Alex was finally able to push himself up to sit on the sand, with his legs crossed. He took a deep breath in, and stretched out his finger.

Drawing long lines in the air, he traced a long rectangle circling around him, finishing it off with the word ‘Cloth’. Out from the shining light, came the one strip bandage he wanted. Using his magic some more, he conjured 10 more strips.

“G-Gahh…”

Using his still injured hands, he wrapped the bandage strips around his chest wound. Gritting his teeth, he tied it all around his bloodied chest, and kept it in place using a small metal clip he conjured. He’s not a doctor, but he at least knew this much from the action movies he watched!

Now that that was done, he went onto his second most wounded part of his body, his arms. Conjuring some more strips of bandages, he wrapped them around his arms as he cringed in pain. Using [[Concentration]] also seems to ease some of the pain.

“G-Guh…”

After his right arm was fully bandaged, he moved onto his other arm. Using the leftover bandage strips, he wrapped them neatly around his injured arm.

“Hah…hah…Ouch.”

Clipping the strips of bandages together with a metal clip, he took one last look around his body before getting up. Fortunately, it seems like his legs were spared from the massive injuries! Yay!

After waiting there silently for a while, he looked around awkwardly. Noticing that his shirt and pants were pretty torn up, he quickly conjured himself a new set of clothes to wear. Out from the light, came a pair of black jeans and a white T-shirt.

Taking a look around once more, he stripped away his torn shirt and jeans, and quickly put on his new set of clothes.

Luckily, he was stranded in an archipelago. So hopefully no one saw him doing that…

That done, he walked over to his fallen backpack and took it up. Wearing it on his back, he picked up the little crab who was sleeping on the sandy beach and placed him in.

He turned to his fallen desert eagle and picked it up. Conjuring a new holster, he slid the gun back to his waist.

“Alright…What to do…”

-2 hours later-

“Just a little more…”

Once again, on that little island, the figure of Alex was seen, this time pushing something into the ocean.

What was he pushing, you ask?

*Byuur*

After about an hour of pushing, he finally managed to get his boat into the waters! Quickly, he made sure tied the edge of the boat was tied to the wooden stake with a rope he conjured earlier.

To put it simply, after suffering from two attempts at using that surfboard, he concluded that doing so would attract monsters. Pretty obvious, huh?

But that wasn’t the thing he was concerned about. While he was thinking about what to do, he began to recall his past attempts at travelling the sea. At first, there were only a couple crabs, and then a dolphin appeared, and then the seagulls came, and finally he blew away the giant octopus from existence.

Oddly, he felt that the monsters he faced was slowly increasing in strength. It felt just like a fantasy RPG game, where the monsters’ levels slowly increase as you go through the game.

It was as if…The ocean itself knew about his growth.

It was definitely farfetched, but it felt quite odd that as he progressed, more and more monsters began appearing.

Gah…It’s as if there’s an administrator to this place…

But putting that aside, he knew that travelling about with that surfboard was probably his safety option to get away quickly, attracting the monsters as a cost. That was something he would rather avoid, even after getting this strong.

He wasn’t in that much of a hurry either. That in mind, what other ways can he use to travel the ocean?

Well, obviously it’s a boat!

His target in sight, his finger lit up a bright light and he began tracing the boat’s hull. He didn’t need to be that fancy, and drew a simple canoe-shaped hull. He also added two holes on the side, for paddling.

The hull done, he quickly conjured a pair of wooden paddles. With both paddles in hand, he slid them into the two holes he put on the hull.

Next, he traced a small sail to put on the boat. Ending it with the word ‘Cloth’, he held the blue said in his hands. Setting it down for a moment, he conjured a nice long wooden pole and strapped it onto the middle of the hull with some rope.

But feeling like that wasn’t enough, he conjured some nails and a wooden mallet. Nails and the mallet in hand, he nailed down the wooden pole. “Ah!” He also hit his hands sometimes.

After tapping on the wooden pole, and deciding that it was strong enough, he conjured himself a strong rope and tied the cloth said onto the wooden pole. The end result was quite sloppy, but it stretched out the said and made it work.

And after all that, his small wooden boat was finished!

He conjured himself a large wooden stake and impaled it into the sandy shore. Tying a rope he conjured around it, he tied the other end onto the edge of the boat. He needed to make sure this thing didn’t just suddenly drift off into the sunset while he wasn’t looking.

That would suck.

And so, that brings him back to the present.

“Alright.”

Looking confidently into the seas, he took a deep breath and walked onto his boat. Carefully, he set down his legs onto the wooden hull, although the boat sunk in slightly, it was floating! It’s working!

Stretching out his left hand, he tried to feel whether there was any wind coming. “Doesn’t seem like it.” Pulling his hand back onto the hull, he untied the rope on the edge of his boat, and held onto his two paddles.

With a single push, he was away!

Well, one push wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he began paddling slowly through the calm seas. He made sure he wasn’t going too fast, or else he might get himself captured by a giant tentacle and pulled down into the depths of the ocean.

He shivered slightly as he thought that.

Shrugging the thought away, he continued to paddle towards where the town was. He silently enjoyed the soft howl of the occasional wind.

But then, suddenly, the seas began turning violent. A wave crashed onto his wooden hull, and he was shaken out of the peaceful atmosphere. Snapping back to reality, he looked to his side to sea many waves travelling across the once calm sea.

“What the hell?”

Holding his two paddles, he braced himself for the waves. His boat was carried away by the moving tides, away from where the town was!

“Hey!”

Paddling forward, he battled against the moving waves. His boat was getting bumpy, a small water puddle formed inside his wooden hull. A bead of sweat rolled down his white knuckles.

“Tch.”

He began to feel tired as the waves got stronger. Biting his lip, he concentrated his magic onto his two knuckles. With a sudden surge of strength, he pushed his boat against the crashing waves!

His [[Concentration]] skill was activated!

Although it was on his two hands this time.

Can this still be called [[Concentration]]?

His boat rode on the passing waves as the waves began getting larger and larger. The winds passing by turned hectic and violent.

“What’s going on?”

He narrowed his eyes as he paddled the boat with his increased strength. His knuckles grew whiter and whiter as a creeping feeling of fear began seeping in.

“What the he-…eh?”

Just as he was about to curse, the waters some distance away from him began to rise dramatically. The giant water bubble tore open, and out of it came a giant twin-tailed whale. His eyes instantly turned to dots.

*Wwwuuuuooooo*

“Holy sh*t…That’s a huge whale.”