Chapter 8 - Civilization here I come!

The group quietly looked around and confirmed that there weren’t any sightings of enemies, they all quickly turned to David wondering what the hell is wrong with him.

“I would like to apologize again” David said while bowing, “I got a little bit too excited and may have overreacted a bit without thinking about it, I’ll make sure to work to fix this issue in the future.” David said trying to be polite as possible. Once the group calmed down, he explained some of the things mentioned on his status while trying to hide as much information as possible, Can’t be too careful, David thought as he told the group about the blood manipulation and titles to confirm some of his suspicions.

“Titles give boosts to things such as stats or skills, usually when given skills however they can range from extraordinary to mediocre. In your case you were given blood manipulation, which is rare but also not that sought after since in most cases you can only use blood from your own body, if you don’t have a self-healing skill then you could possibly kill yourself from blood loss.” Harrold said, speaking up for the first time, “On the other hand looking at some of the other skills you got, you have lesser mental resistance and lesser pain resistance. Assuming you didn’t have low resistance that would mean you skipped 1 entire tier for both resistances, this could be considered great at later tiers however in the early tiers its not as good, if I had to compare it to other titles I have heard people getting then this would be mediocre however if this was in later tiers where its extremely hard to level the resistance up, this would be considered amazing.” Harrold said

“Okay next question, “tier”, “level”, what’s the difference between the two?” David asked, this time Lilith spoke up, “Once you get a resistance you can level it 10 times, once it reaches level 10 you try and push it 1 step further and once you do so, it becomes Lesser Resistance. Then once you level up that resistance to level 20 same thing, repeat and add 10, there are theorized to be 5 resistances, after that maybe immunity. So in levels alone you get 10 levels, then 20, then 30, then 40, then 50 though nobody has hit 50 from our knowledge.” Lilith said politely, catching David off-guard as if the early conversation about killing him did not happen.

“Is that with only resistances or for all skills?” David asked thinking about how long it would take to do so. “That’s with only resistances, with skills it can vary between hitting max level at 5 or level 50.”, God damn is that vague and unspecific, David lamented as he thought about what his next step should be.

“Oh, wait I haven’t looked at my stats yet”, He said while looking back at his status, he noticed it was easier to open then before.

Unallocated Stat Points Remaining: 70

Strength:9

Vitality:8

Dexterity:5

Luck:2

Wisdom:0

Intelligence:0

David looked at his stats and looked back at the group, “Random question are the stats names 100% related to what they say?”, David said looking at his Wisdom and Intelligence. “If your looking at your intelligence, that and wisdom are both normal to be at 0. Intelligence and Wisdom doesn’t increase your memory or thought process at all, instead it increases your mana capacity and increases the potency of your magic dealing more damage for the same cost.” Abe said.

David nodded glad and looked back to his status, What should I invest in? He mused as suddenly Klein gave some advice.

“I would recommend before putting in points, to first try and use your blood affinity, if you practice enough and learn to use it you will increase your Intelligence and Wisdom.

David nodded, So it’s the works the same way as strength or dexterity, “So how should I use the blood manipulation?” David asked not quite sure how to manipulate his blood.

Klein made a puzzled face than sighed, “Well as mentioned before its rare, I personally don’t know anyone with a blood affinity, I assume the others don’t as well.” He said as he looked towards the others in the group as each confirms his suspicion.

“However, that doesn’t mean we can try!” Klein said seemingly bursting with energy, until everyone glared at him for speaking so loud with enemies literally everywhere around them.

“I would also like to point out that you should try increasing your stats as much as possible, eventually you will reach the bottleneck of how high you can go with purely hard work, its better to keep them for as long as possible until you can no longer get higher in points, unless you’re in a dire situation of course” Abe said putting down his massive shield and sword he had been holding since David initially saw him. Which got a look from Gwen who was still holding her bow and seemed to be in a position to shoot at him in worst case scenario, she soon sighed however and put her bow down next to her as they sat down around the campsite fire.

“So, any ideas where a city or town that won’t attack me on site would be?” David asked thinking about his 2 black horns that were protruding through his head, seriously how did I never realise they were there till Klein pointed it out. Gwen opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it deciding otherwise while Klein got up and grabbed a spare map they had and gave it too David before explaining their general connection and how to get to cities.

An empire to the east, a couple independent cities scattered around except for the North which people consider a no man’s land. Sucks they have no information about it though. *Sigh, Well whatever.

“Anyway, moving on, where do we go from here?” David said having gotten most of the information he needed, “We will escort you out to Dalfin, a city a few kilometres north east of our current location.” Gwen said, then Abe spoke up, “David, I’m going to be honest with you, we are going to discuss once we get there, whether or not to kill you.” Abe said looking directly into David’s eyes.

Klein then mentioned to Abe, “Abe lets be honest, he’s not a threat and seems reasonable”, Klein said before winking towards David, which made him smirk and nod back.

“I know which is why I told what we were going to do once we get back, however I we will be deciding this on a majority vote between our expedition group.” Abe retorted and looked to David and had a pitying look on his face.

“Its fine, don’t worry about it.” David said while gesturing that it was okay towards Klein and Abe.

The group stayed there overnight with Abe, Gwen and Lilith each individually keeping watch for a couple hours before switching with the next person and sleeping.

Soon sunrise had arrived, Gwen saw this and walked over to wake everybody up, she walked up to each person before turning towards the last sleeping person, David, *Sigh, she sighed deciding to trust Abe’s judgement and woke him up.

They quickly got ready and left their campsite, Abe who seemed to be the leader and the tank of the team was leading the group whilst David moving a little behind him to his right and on the left side opposite of David, Harrold was positioned. Gwen and Klein were stationed a little behind David and Harrold but in-between them, forming something similar to a star.

David admired the scenery as they made their way through the forest, Other than the fact that there is nowhere near enough light, this place is beautiful. David thought looking around.

They quietly talked about a couple of things as they moved, occasionally being shushed when sounds were heard. David during these times ask about the few questions he had left.

“I forgot to ask; how do I get a class?” David asked while slowly moving forward with his longsword in both hands, “Well its not as simple as “getting a class” but more like you have to complete certain requirements and then it will notify you once you have done so” Abe whispered quietly, “Okay, so is it possible to get more than one class?” David asked more quietly than before, “Not that we know of, if someone has than they either haven’t told anyone or they haven’t achieved it yet” Klein mentioned, “I mean I heard some rumours about some elves having more than one class but I couldn’t find any information other than that, so I just assumed it was false.” Klein added.

Suddenly, Abe put his hand up, the whole group stiffens, *Thump, *Thump, *Thump, *Thump. A grey 3-metre-tall monster walked horizontally of the group, they quickly hid while waiting for it to pass, *Sniff *Sniff, the monster sniffed.

The group was dead silent, they all stopped breathing and tried to hide as best they could.

*Thump, *Thump, *Thump, *Thump… They heard the footsteps slowly lead away from them as they all took a deep sigh in relief, “Holy shit, that was close” Lilith said causing the rest of the group to nod. “Random question but how likely would it be for us to kill it or escape if it had noticed us?” David asked hoping they would have a chance if they ran into anymore, “Zero” Gwen said, “Zero as in zero chance of killing it or zero chance of escaping?”, David asked still trying to be hopeful, “Both” Gwen replied causing David to realise just how close too death they were.

Adrenaline rushed through his body as a small smirk started growing on his face. Huh, why am I smiling? He quickly shook his head as they took a defensive formation and Gwen went out and scouted ahead to make sure they were not walking on the wrong path or walking directly into a wolf’s den.

Once she came back and notified the group about a couple of wolves around the path they were taking, they decided to switch paths but still ended up running into multiple wolves on the way.

“They average around level 10, in packs they can be fearsome, however with few in number they are quite easy to dispatch” Harrold said as Abe baited one of the three wolves Infront of them, It jumped at Abe quickly however he used his shield to bash it forwards while David ran in and pierced its head while it was down. The other wolves noticing one of them was gone went searching and quickly came upon the group.

Gwen in quick succession fired 3 arrows towards the two quickly approaching enemies, 1 of the arrows was dodged by the first wolf however the second arrow pierced one of the wolf’s front leg and causing it to fall over but quickly recovered while struggling to stand. The other wolf had dodged the first arrow completely and quickly approached the group, Abe jumped forward and once again pushed his shield forward, but the wolf wasn’t pushed back and continued clawing at the massive shield. David quickly moved over and went to pierce it but was grazed on his arm before slashing it cutting off its head. *Ding

David ignored the noise and looked at the other wolf only to see that it had been finished off by Harrold, David looked at the wolf’s dead body for a moment as his eyes turned cold, Its just a monster, it would have slit your throat if it was given the chance, noticing his breathing had quickened he calmed himself down and looked at Klein who had rushed over worried.

Klein walked to David patting him on the shoulder, looked at him with a knowing look then looked at his right arm would and used a healing spell to close the wound.

“Thanks, Klein”, David said shaking his head to get the wolves off his mind as they started walking away.

Couple hours walking through the dark forest they finally saw open plains with two suns shining down, Wait 2 suns? How does like gravity work? David started jumping up and down then walked to a tree and punched it, Lilith points towards David and looks at Abe with a confused face and he just stared towards David with the most confused face he had ever made. “Uh, David, you alright their buddy?”, Abe said before walking to David and putting a hand on his shoulder, “Yeah I’m fine, how are you?”, He said trying to make the conversation less awkward as Abe stared at him as if he was a crazy person. However, Gwen and Lilith look at each other after hearing that and started whispering, “Well I mean if he had gone through all that torture it would make sense for him to have a few screws loose”. Gwen said looking at David with a pitiful look on her face, However David hears this and retorts, “Hey! Look I’m not crazy, YOUR CRAZY!” He said before he and Harrold who was watching this whole thing laughed. While Abe, Lilith and Gwen look at each other and contemplate whether forming this expedition team was worth it.

After they all calmed down, they walked north east for 2 and a half hours, occasionally running into monsters that either ran away or were defeated quickly by the group, slowly David noticed a grey blob he had noticed earlier slowly getting bigger and bigger until a massive wall was spread-out before him, Civilization, David happily thought as he walked closer.

Until he noticed the rest of the group was not walking around him and then got pulled from behind, “What’s happening?” David asked as everyone pulled him away from the city, “Ah this is my bad, I kind of spaced out getting closer and then realised we still need to keep you out of the city for the discussion, plus y’know horns” Abe said pointing towards David’s head. “Ah right, shit” David commented before sitting on a hill on a hill far away from the city with Klein.