Danger! Danger!

I awoke with a start. My sixth sense screaming at me. Telling me that something was wrong. Telling me something dangerous was coming this way.

My mind immediately clamped down over my body, freezing its startled and shaky movements so that I didn’t accidentally make any moves that would give my position away. Then my years of survival experience took over. Firstly, I didn’t run, panic, or even make a sound. Instead, I listened.

It was deep into the night, possibly early morning, but I didn’t know. It was dark. Pitch black. My night vision spell wasn’t activated.

Slowly, I calmed and slowed my breathing, and waited. It didn’t take long for me to feel and hear it. The heavy footfalls of something big. It was slow. No. There was more than one. The way they walked indicated that it was three things, stomping on the ground. Bipedal in nature, so not a four-legged creature.

They didn’t hide their approach this deep in the night indicating that they weren’t worried about attracting attention to them. A top predator? My mind raced as I wondered what bipedal creature from my world would live in the forest and be unafraid of the alligators and snakes?

I couldn’t think of anything quickly. This meant that they were something new, from this world. I tried to gain any information I could from their approach. I heard branches crack and trees brushed aside as they approached. Then I heard the crunch of rocks under feet.

They were on the riverbed now.

I almost jumped when Danger Sense and Stealth leveled up but managed to keep myself still. I would have to learn to deal with screens possibly popping up during dangerous times now. This could have been one of them, but thankfully, it wasn’t.

They were close by. I could hear grunts now, gargles of something definitely not human. The sound they made was deep. Deeper than what a normal animal or human would be able to possess. They passed near my cave on the riverbed. Their steps slow. I thought they would pass right by me until I heard them stop. Not all at once. One stopped then another. They gurgled something and then the third one stopped.

They gurgled some more, and then I heard them begin to sniff. Not small sniffs, but deep and long ones. Sniffs that remined me of a dogs. It was a sniff that was looking for something, searching after a scent it picked up.

SNIFF. SNIFF. Sniff-SNIFF!

Sweat was pouring down my back now as I wondered if they were creatures that had a higher sense of smell. If that was the case, then I would be quickly found.

More gargles were heard after that. Deep and low. One even walked back a few steps, close to my cave and sniffed again.

They spent a while just moving around the riverbed sniffing before finally, they started to walk away. Danger sense leveled up 3 more times during this experience and stealth leveled up twice, eventually pushing me to level up as well. Meaning that something incredibly dangerous just passed by me and was close to finding me if it were not for the cave.

I sat completely still for a long time after they left, just listening to the forest, the river, and my heartbeat. I couldn’t get to sleep after that.

Hours passed; I didn’t dare move until I saw the cave brighten. Only then did I slowly get up and peek around the side of the tower shield.

The sun was up enough for me to see through the holes I made to the riverbed. Nothing looked different, but I was so glad that I had dug my cave.

When I didn’t see anything and my sixth sense wasn’t flashing at me, I took a deep breath.

‘Damn that was close. What the hell were those things?’

While I thanked my lucky stars for being prepared, I stored the shield away into my inventory, drank some water, ate breakfast, added my free stat point, and then looked over my status screen.

[Name: John Phoenix

Age: 18

Race: Human

Title(s): Survivor

Level: 9->10(10%)

HP: 180

MP: 470

Vitality: 18

Strength: 17

Agility: 21->22

Intelligence: 47(mana brain)

Wisdom: 56(mana heart)

Skills:

Spells:

Mana Manipulation Lvl 1, Meditation Lvl 1, Chanting Lvl 1, Runic Language Lvl 1, Sense Mana Lvl 1, Extract Mana Lvl 1, Empower Spell Lvl 2, Inspect Lvl 1, Mana Shield Lvl 1, Mana Bolt Lvl 3, Telekinesis Lvl 1, Spell Break Lvl 1, Interrupt Spell Lvl 1, Clean Lvl 10

Fire Spells:

Flame Control Lvl 1, Burn Lvl 1, Firewall Lvl 1

Water Spells:

Water Manipulation Lvl 1, Fog Lvl 1, Breath of Water Lvl 1

Ice Spells:

Freeze Lvl 1, Frozen Dagger Lvl 1, Ice Wall Lvl 1

Earth Spells:

Earth Manipulation Lvl 1, Earth Wall Lvl 1, Dirt to Mud Lvl 1, Mud to Stone Lvl 1, Quicksand Lvl 1, Mud Shot Lvl 1

Nature Spells:

Plant Control Lvl 1, Growth Lvl 1, Wall of Thorns Lvl 1

Wind Spells:

Gust Lvl 1, Feather-Fall Lvl 1, Wind Arrow Lvl 1, Air Dome Lvl 1

Lightning Spells:

Spark Lvl 1, Chain Lightning Lvl 1

Light Spells:

Light Lvl 1, Flash Lvl 1, Cure Lvl 1, Mend Lvl 1, Purify Lvl 1, Heal Lvl 2,

Mind Spells:

Mind Shield Lvl 1

Shadow Spells:

Night Vision Lvl 1, Silence Lvl 1, Poison Cloud Lvl 1, Shadow Crows Lvl 1

Arts:

Dagger Arts Lvl 1, Bow Arts Lvl 1, Pugilist Arts Lvl 1, Siege Weapon Arts Lvl 1

Skills:

Tracking Lvl 1, Identify Trap Lvl 1, Danger Sense Lvl 4->8, Stealth Lvl 2->4, Running Lvl 1, Steady Hands Lvl 1, Precise Strike Lvl 1, Pain Resistance Lvl 4, Mental Resistance Lvl 1, Fear Resistance Lvl 2, Heat Resistance Lvl 1, Cold Resistance Lvl 1, Lightning Resistance Lvl 1, Poison Resistance Lvl 2, Soul Manipulation Resistance Lvl 1, Acting Lvl 1, Light Armor Lvl 1, Heavy Armor Lvl 1, Writing Lvl 1, Cooking Lvl 1, Herbalism Lvl 1, Architect Lvl 1, Mathematics Lvl 2, Measurement Lvl 1, Farmer Lvl 1, Hoe Arts Lvl 1, Sickle Arts Lvl 1, Hammer Arts Lvl 1, Cartography Lvl 1, Trapmaking Lvl 1, Cleaning Lvl 1, Trading Lvl 1, Appraisal Lvl 1, Decrease Price Lvl 1

After looking everything over, I noticed that I had leveled up to level 10. This made me think of how quickly people level here. Either that or the first dozen levels were easier to get. But since I had leveled up to level 10 in one day or so, I became worried of what I would encounter when I met up with civilization.

‘If I meet up with civilization. I have yet to see smoke from any cooking fires or chimneys. I know that water breeds civilization, but still. How could I not see anything yet? Am I still that far away from anyone?........’

I shook my head and like those creatures last night, I decided to not think about it. I would continue to follow the river until I ended up somewhere.

‘Even if the river leads me to an ocean, I need to follow it. I have no other option.’

I performed some light stretching to move my tight muscles, used the restroom, cleaned myself, and then turned to the back wall.

I was not going out the same hole that, whatever those things were, sniffed around at. So I decided to make my own exit. Again, Earth manipulation was pushed to the limit for an hour or so as I went deeper into the underground of the forest.

It wasn’t until I pushed another 6 feet deep that I decided to push up. Not all at once, but small holes. Enough to let light in and enough for me to see out of at different angles.

When I didn’t see or hear anything, I continued to widen the holes, until a two-foot wide hole above me appeared. To test it. I pulled out one of my spears from the inventory, attached a bunch of dirt to it with earth manipulation, which leveled up again, until I had a head-like shape on the spear tip. I then slowly pushed the spear tip up until it was out of the hole.

When nothing happened after a minute, I slowly pulled it down.

I gave myself a minute before widening the hole by another foot and then trying again. When nothing happened, I widened it by another foot. I repeated this once more until a 5 ft hole was above me.

I used my senses to listen to hear anything and to use my eyes to see if anything was around the treetops. Sensing nothing, I gingerly exited the hole, my spear back in my inventory, and a mana bolt at the ready.

Thankfully though, nothing was around. My sixth sense didn’t feel anything the whole time either, but I wanted to be safer than sorry.

With a sigh, I used earth manipulation to cover back up the hole and canceled the mana bolt spell. The mana dissipated quickly after I canceled it. I was covering the hole in the unlikely chance that if I needed to backtrack, I could use this cave as a safe place to hide.

Once done, I began my journey again.

The cool morning air was refreshing, and the dew of the new day glistened as the sun’s rays touched it. It was breathtaking in its beauty.

Even so, I didn’t let the charm of the new day distract me from the dangers hidden within this forest. After all, the strange and deadly visitors I had last night were still threatening me in the back of my mind. Thankfully, they were going upriver and didn’t find me, but their mere existence scared me.

I am but a weak man with minimal protection and no idea of what else lurks in this world. Those creatures were a stark reminder to me that I needed to improve and become familiar with my abilities and this world. I had cast but one of my offensive spells and none of my defensive spells so far. That needed to change. I needed to know what I was capable of.

So, after an hour or two of crouch walking, I stopped to rest under the shade of a tree and made a careful decision. Nodding my head, I began to gather the mana in my body to cast a new spell, quicksand.

I thought through all of my spells in my metaphorical library that I could use to face whatever those things were last night, and came to one conclusion, control the environment.

Those things had very heavy footsteps and were slow, meaning, if the ground became quicksand and they couldn’t get out, they couldn’t attack me. Furthermore, they would be sitting ducks for my attack spells. Thus, I chose to try and cast this spell instead of any of the others.

Furthermore, this spell should be silent and not as noticeable as any of the others I had considered. I was still in dangerous territory, so I had to be conscious of that. So I stood still and cast the spell.

The first thing I noticed about the quicksand spell was that it took longer than I thought to cast, around 60 seconds or so. The runes were also much more complicated and needed more of my focus to cast.

When I completed the spell, it took about 115 mana from me. The second-largest mana consuming spell that I had cast other than heal, that I think took 150 or 200 mana to cast. I couldn’t remember the exact amount though due to my focus being spit on other things.

Immediately after I finished casting it, the ground around me started to change. The mana that left me moved through the ground and changed it. The dirt quickly turned to sand. What’s more, the tree beside me began to sink, then the tree on the other side of me began to sink, then bushes around me began to sink.

I quickly realized I screwed up. I didn’t realize how powerful the spell was until all the trees around me suddenly began to sink into the sand. I looked around and found that an area with a diameter of at least 30 feet around me had become a massive sandpit.

The spell I cast continued what it was doing, and the trees kept sinking. These trees, which were 40 to 50 feet tall at the tallest with large branches all over the place, began to press down on me.

‘Oh shoot!!’

I also realized that I was stuck! I didn’t have anywhere else to go to dodge the branches coming down on me. The only area not affected by the spell was the small area I was standing on, a foot or two more around me, but that was it. Everything else was sinking in the sand.

Thinking quickly, I began to push the tree branches and thus the tree itself away from me. It was difficult at first, but with the quicksand below it reducing its stability and my increased strength stat, I managed to push it enough so that gravity would take over.

It slowly fell into another tree that pushed another. They splashed into the sand before being covered by it. I didn’t know how deep the quicksand went, but as I saw these tall trees sink all the way to just over my height, I had a pretty decent idea.

‘Damn! What a strong spell! This is crazy. And anyone can cast this?! How do they control public order in major cities if anyone can sink houses into the ground like this?!’

I shook the unnecessary thoughts out of my head and focused on what was going on now. I waited, in the center of this sandy area with short trees and no bushes or grass until the quicksand stilled. Taking a breath, I realized, I should definitely find a better place to practice my skills. I was now practically in the open with about 30 feet in either direction completely baren of objects to hide me.

I immediately began to think up a solution to get out of there. I used earth manipulation to try and harden the sand. Sand was still earth at least from what I understood of it, so I hoped it worked. Thankfully, it did, and a baseball-sized sand brick appeared in front of me. It also didn’t sink! That was a good sign.

I then began to make more sand bricks, until I had a small path over the sand for about 3 feet away from my little circle of dirt. But I couldn’t go farther than that. I realized that I couldn’t control any earth father than about 3 feet away from me. That caused me to again worry about how to get out of this mess.

Thinking logically, I began to use the sand on my other sides to make the sand bricks and then tossed them to make a hopscotched path to the end of the quicksand pool.

Once there were enough to the end, I tried to put my weight on the first brick. However, I quickly realized how stupid an idea like that was. I was stepping on sand, so the brick sank like, well, a brick.

It took me a moment to think up another idea. I looked into my metaphysical library in my mind and pulled out another spell, feather-fall. This spell would make you as light as a feather, so if I jumped across the quicksand like that, I should be able to make it.

The spell quickly started to take shape in my mind, costing around 15 mana or so to cast. When I finished casting it, I immediately felt my mana cover my body like a thin invisible shell. Once it did, I noticed a difference in how gravity affected me.

I felt lighter, like I was on the moon! Or a moon-themed bouncy house. I jumped up and slowly floated back down. It was another consistent spell that I could keep active once cast too. It only cost 4 mana to keep it active.

Now with a better plan, I hyped myself up and jumped over to the first brick. It still sank a little when I stayed on it, so I quickly jumped to the next one, and then the next. Like a deadly tiptoe game, I hopped across the sandpit I unwittingly created.

Soon my feet were back on solid ground allowing me to breathe easier, and I even got a screen pop up.

[Congratulations! Feather-fall spell leveled up!]

I didn’t see my level-up screen, so I looked at my stats and saw that I was at 90% to level 11. Nodding my head and glad that I gained something good out of this mess, I began to leave the area I had essentially destroyed with sand.

Not too late either, my sixth sense began to ting in the back of my mind that there was danger coming from the direction I came from, so I made a swift exit.

I continued to move until my sixth sense died down. After that, I slowed down but kept moving.

Just because I made a mistake with quicksand didn’t mean I wasn’t going to practice my spells. No. I knew that I needed to understand my own power and abilities, at least, in a way that didn’t cause me to end up in difficult or dangerous situations.

Instead, I decided to focus on other non-lethal spells, like inspect, silence, and mind shield, to keep me busy. I determined that it would be safer to wait until I was out of this dangerous forest to cast any of the loud and easily spotted spells like firewall or the like. I didn’t want to attract anything threatening to me yet. And what I found in these types of spells was fairly interesting in itself too.

Silence took less than 10 seconds to cast, was a continuous spell that cost 5 MP to maintain, and initially cost 20 MP to cast. The spell, once cast, forced my mana to cover my body like feather-fall did before. I then began my testing. First by picking up a twig, taking it to my ear, and slowly breaking it. My actions, however, made no sound. I picked up two rocks next and shook them in my hand together next to my ear. The same result, no sound.

It seemed that whatever I acted upon was silenced because of the spell. Whether this also implied to other people or enemies that I was attacking, I didn’t know. But the synergy of the Silence spell and the Stealth skill quickly became apparent to me.

In the end, I decided to keep the silence spell active as I walked through the forest stealthily. It reduced my Mana regeneration by almost all of it, but I thought it was worth it. With stealth and silence, I was confident that I would be able to sneak past an enemy or at least see the enemy before he saw me, unless the enemy relied on smell to find me. But I couldn’t find any spells that stopped smell other than the clean spell. And that spell was unusable for my purposes due to the glow it gave off when it was cast, so I stuck with stealth and silence and continued to watch out for any hidden enemies.

The next spell, Inspect, was cast like normal. I hoped that I would be able to level it soon, but after using it until I reached 150 mana left in my mana pool, I had to stop. I decided to keep a minimum of 150 mana in my mana pool at all times in case I needed to use heal or if I needed to fight something. I only resumed casting inspect after it went back above 200 MP.

Mind shield on the other hand, was intriguing. The spell took about 30 seconds to cast, but its runes weren’t that difficult, only numerous. I believed that if I got faster at it, I could reduce the time to cast it by a lot.

The spell itself only cost 26 mana to cast. The intriguing part though was the fact that it cost just 2 mana a minute to maintain. Far lower than any of the other continuous spells that I had.

The low cost to maintain it was incredibly interesting to me and I wondered why, but I couldn’t come to a conclusion with the minuscule amount of information that I had. So I filled it away as another question that I would find out later.

Once cast, my mana moved and covered my head in a thin invisible veil of mana. It was like the silence spell or Feather-fall except it only covered my head. I tried hitting my head with my hand to see if it stopped physical attacks, but ended up with a headache for my trouble.

I then tried to feel it with my fingers, but they passed right through it like nothing was there. I only knew it existed because I cast it, but if I didn’t, I doubt anyone would know. It didn’t hinder my vision or senses. It was like a skintight suit you forget you have on because it’s invisible and you don’t feel it.

I then wondered if it would protect my head from magical attacks but decided not to test that out. I had seen what a mana bolt could do to a head. No thank you.

Thus, I concluded that for now, mind shield could only protect the mind from mental attacks. How well, that has yet to be seen.

These spells I cast a couple dozen times to see if any of them would level, but sadly, none of them did. Instead, I spent the rest of my time until I stopped for lunch, moving, keeping silence active, and occasionally casting inspect when I had the mana too.

It was about noon when I finally stopped to really take a rest and eat. I had gone at least 10 or 20 miles at this point. But I still hadn’t seen any signs of life. The only difference I found was the trees becoming different, less oppressive with the might of the forest, and not as close together. Meaning that I was getting to a change in the forest’s geography. This was good. The geography of a forest usually changes when you are getting close to leaving it.

I leaned back against the warm tree, closed my eyes, and smiled as the warmth of the sun filled my soul.

‘Summer. This has to be early summer or spring. There aren’t a lot of dead leaves on the ground, it looks like everything is blooming or has bloomed, and the warmth of the sun just feels like how spring or early summer hits you…’

This kind of day reminded me of when I was young. My thoughts drifted back to my world, my dad grilling on the back porch, my mother grabbing more food and drinks from the kitchen, my sister and brother playing with the dog in the backyard or swimming in the pool. I could almost smell the grill, the chlorine, fresh-cut grass, the blood.

‘Blood?... I don’t remember there being any-!!!’

I shot my eyes open and remained still. I sniffed a few more times hoping that I was wrong, but sadly blood was definitely in the air.

My sixth sense then started to ring, the danger wasn’t coming towards me, but it was in the area. Why it waited until now to warn me, I didn't know. Even after all the years I lived in hell, I still didn’t understand fully how, when, or why my 6th sense would ring at me. I only knew that if danger was heading towards me, it would ring, but what it considered heading towards me and what it considered danger was still unknown. Originally I thought it was danger sense like the skill, but after getting the skill there was still a difference.

Danger sense, I found, only gave me an immediate warning of danger, but my 6th sense was much broader and wider in its coverage. It was like someone tapping you on the shoulder saying, don't go there, or something's coming be prepared. While Danger Dense seemed to be just for immediate dangers. I would have to experiment more, but that was my initial assessment of the skill.

I shook those thoughts out of my head and focused on the smell of blood. I couldn’t see anything in front of me, but my senses were telling me that it was far enough away to the side of me. Not towards the river, but in the opposite direction, farther in the forest.

I strained my ears to listen. I didn’t hear anything at first, but then like whispers carried on the wind, I began to notice.

Voices. Small voices. Higher pitched than mine. More than 2. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were voices. Speaking in some kind of language. Their voices weren’t like the creatures last night either.

At first, I thought it might be people or what the main world considered people. They didn’t sound angry or anything. No, it sounded like they were eating.

I slowly got up and turned around. Silence was still active since I never canceled it and I was grateful for that now.

I listened to the voices as I scoured the forest for threats, for the owners of the voices. Slowly, ever so slowly, I made my way towards them. I then stopped for a moment and checked something. I almost sighed with relief. My mana was full, just in case I would need it to defend myself. I then resumed my walk.

As I passed by tree after tree, bush after bush, the voices got louder. I kept to the shade of the trees, never revealing more than my head to check the surroundings before continuing on.

I pulled out my bow from my inventory and an arrow just in case too. I hadn’t been able to be very trusting of people for the past few years, so my precautions were normal.

Finally, I saw them. Or at least part of their head.

I had thought that they would be sitting down since they were eating lunch. But when the head moved like it was walking, I stopped.

Something in my gut told me this was wrong. My sixth sense was telling me the same thing. Hell, if danger sense did anything for me, it would probably tell me the same thing. But I needed to know. These were the first things I found that spoke a language of this world. A language I didn’t know, but still, a language. That meant some kind of civilization right? So I kept going, more careful of my actions, and eyes wide to take in everything.

But even the best-laid plans can fail. It seemed that I wasn’t careful enough because something spotted me to my left. It was walking back from somewhere chewing on what looked to be a squirrel, farther in the forest. I had missed him behind a bush, but he didn’t miss me when he stood up and turned around.

His screech made me jump instinctively. His features though, frightened me more than the screech.

What I looked at was not a man. It was not an animal either. It was an abomination. Its teeth were razor-sharp, its head was malformed and wart-like, its skin looked greasy and leathery green, but it’s oversized green and brown eyes were what scared me the most. They were twice or more the size of my own and staring right at me.

I froze when I saw it. It was only 3 feet tall but it scared the crap out of me.

‘The hell is that!?!’

I didn’t have time to wonder as its friends started to move towards me from the camp. I was wrong about the amount. There were at least 8 of them including the one that spotted me.

I immediately turned around and ran. I needed space and a plan.

They all screeched at me and chased after me wildly. They threw rocks and stones at me as I ran. The only one carrying a real weapon was the slightly taller one. It carried a thick stick like a club.

I managed to stay ahead of them due to my increased agility and stride, but they were still chasing me, if lagging behind.

When I got out of their range of stones, I turned to try and inspect one of them, but the spell wouldn’t work. They were too far from me. So I pulled my bow and fired an arrow at the creatures.

My arrow, unfortunately, was way overshot and the creatures laughed at my failure in their creepy cackling laugh. I pulled another one out and tried again. This time I shot it low, but it hit the ground.

Frustrated with my archery skills, I decided to gather my mana to shoot a mana bolt at them. The mana gathered, it formed in front of my hand, and as the stones started to hit me again, I fired the mana bolt.

The mana bolt went to the exact point I wanted it to, and it hit the chest of the leading monster, obliterating its chest and hitting the one behind, tearing its arm off. This caused the monsters to screech again. It was so loud. I didn't have time to be shocked at what I had done though, they were still charging me!

I focused on the next mana bolt. The things were coming closer and closer, I used my other arm to take a hit of a few stones so that I could continue my cast. I didn't know if moving or running would make casting harder so I stayed put. The seconds it took to normally cast the mana bolt seemed to take forever now.

Right as the things got within 10 feet of me, I finished the spell and quickly fired off the next bolt. This shot ripped through the taller one’s head and popped it like a balloon of blood and brain tissue before hitting a tree and obliterating the point of impact, causing the tree to fall over.

The death of what I assumed was their leader and the loud sound of the falling of the tree caused the monsters to stop screeching and freeze where they were. Just 10 feet away were these monstrous abominations. All their eyes were on me, hesitant to be the first to step forward.

I didn't let a perfect moment pass me by and began casting the next bolt. I guess they saw me raise my hand which caused the deaths of their friends, and felt fear. Before I could finish casting the next mana bolt, the monsters quickly turned tail and ran. Just in time too. I finished the next mana bolt. Seeing it in my hand made them run even faster.

But it also made their movements more erratic. They didn’t flee in one direction, so I was only able to get off another mana bolt before they all were too far gone. I managed to get the one that spotted me though. It wasn’t as fast as the others. Casting mana bolt on a moving target was harder too, but I still nicked his side, and that was enough for a good chunk of his side to turn into a bloody pulp.

The screams of pain from the two surviving things began to ring out as they bled out. I didn't get a moment to breathe before the darn screens assaulted my vision again.

[Congratulations! Mana bolt has leveled up!]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

The battle was over. I survived.

I took the breath that I was holding before and wiped the sweat from my brow.

After a moment of pause to collect myself, I let my survival instincts kick in again. They were telling me to get out of the area quickly. Something must and would have heard us fight, especially the falling tree. The mana bolts explosions weren’t exactly stealthy either. The blood from the battle would also attract others looking for a quick meal.

But before I left the area, I turned around and walked closer to the beaten enemies. Close enough so that inspect could work, around 5 feet or so. When it worked, a new screen popped up.

[Goblin]

‘Great, that’s informative.’

[Congratulations! Inspect spell has leveled up!]

‘Oh! That’s good.’

I then immediately turned around and ran away. I didn’t care about finishing off the creatures that were still alive. Hopefully, their screeches would attract anything that might have noticed me as I ran through the forest. After all, being stealthy while running is difficult and I had yet to master that skill in this body.

My hope to be a little quieter as I ran, fell to the silence spell. Thankfully I still had the silence spell active through all of that, but I quickly found out that the silence spell didn’t work well when running. I could still hear the crunch of the leaves under my feet. Good information to know, but not that important right now as I ran and watched out for predators.

After about 4 minutes of running, I stopped and began to stealthily crouch walk again. Thankfully, I didn’t have any blood on me to clean from the battle, but I still took the time to stop, hide myself, and cast clean. Just to prepare for the chance that something could trace my sent. Then I was moving again.

As I walked, I thought about what just happened, what I could have done differently, and what those things were.

‘Inspect called them goblins. Goblins! God they were ugly. Think! What do I know about goblins from my world?...... Creatures that are seen as cannon fodder. Weak creatures. Cowardly. But able to multiply fast-wait! So I’m just going to accept that goblins exist? No. That’s not what I should be thinking about. I just have to accept it and move on to how to deal with them. I can’t get hung up on crazy creatures appearing every time, that will reduce my response time.’

I then turned back over to what happened in my head again. I started with missing the goblin that saw me.

‘I checked the area once and then moved on. How did I miss it? Can they blend themselves into the area as well? Possibly? They were green or dark green, like the bushes or ground cover. Maybe I wouldn’t see them if they hid under that. I’ll have to be more vigilant on dense areas of ground cover then.

Now, when they saw me they screamed. Did the scream freeze me? No. Then it was just a surprise because I had never seen a creature like that. Damn. I’m in a new world, everything I see will be new. I can’t let myself freeze like that in front of a new enemy!

What next……they charged at me. They didn’t have any ranks or tactics; it was blind charging. They weren’t equipped with much, if anything…..If I didn’t freeze at the one that spotted me I probably could have sent a mana bolt at his head before I started to run away.

Speaking of running away, I was faster than them. They tried to toss stones and other things at me, but their aim was horrible. Mine wasn’t much better either. That needs to change.

I remember shooting a bow when I was younger. I thought I was a pretty good shot. I guess the years of neglect has turned it into a poor skill. I will have to train myself again in the bow.

Mana bolt worked great actually. It blew them away. The bolt went right when I willed it without error. The goblin running away was more difficult to aim at, but I still hit him……should I switch to just using mana bolt then? Instead of using the bow and arrow?’

I thought about that for a moment before shaking my head.

‘No. Mana bolt takes mana that I could be using for something else. Plus, mana bolt is loud when it hits its target. It’s not silent. Oh! I guess I found out that Silence doesn’t negate the sound of spells either……wait… I don’t remember hearing the sound of the bow when I released the arrow… Does silence negate the sound of a bow? Hmmmm… I will have to check that again to make certain, but if that’s the case, then I will definitely be training myself in the bow…….

Ok. So after killing what 3, no 4 of them, they scattered in fear. Ok. They are cowardly. That matches with what I know from my world at least.’

I sighed silently and shook my shoulders to release some of the tension on them. I then began to think how I could have fought them better.

I thought of using the quicksand spell against them but found that I wouldn’t have enough time to cast it before they were on me. I realized that I had maybe 30 seconds before they would have been on my position. Not enough time to cast quicksand. I thought that could have probably used earth manipulation to cause small bumps to trip them up as I ran away. But realized that it would have just been a waste of mana.

What I should have done was keep them at a distance and cast mana bolt after mana bolt at them until they all died. Mana bolt was a quick and easy spell and I was more familiar with currently.

I nodded my head at this idea. I then used that information to plan on how to deal with goblins going forward if I saw them again in the short term.

‘Oh! What if I climbed a tree and shot mana bolts at them? They would be too busy climbing the tree to stop me from attacking them, or if they stayed on the ground and threw rocks at me, I could pull out a shield from the inventory and shoot mana bolts at them from behind it…..Ok. I think that would work too.’

Now with a more concrete plan to kill them in the short term, I settled down and removed my fear of the goblins. Once I had a plan to deal with a situation I could calm myself and react accordingly. I wouldn’t freeze the next time that I saw them.

I then turned myself to my status screen to check, allocate the status point, and look at my gains. Sadly, I still didn’t know if I had leveled up due to the skill increasing or if I leveled up from killing the goblins.

[Name: John Phoenix

Age: 18

Race: Human

Title(s): Survivor

Level: 10->11(34%)

HP: 180

MP: 470->480

Vitality: 18

Strength: 17

Agility: 22

Intelligence: 47->48(mana brain)

Wisdom: 56(mana heart)

Skills:

Spells:

Mana Manipulation Lvl 1, Meditation Lvl 1, Chanting Lvl 1, Runic Language Lvl 1, Sense Mana Lvl 1, Extract Mana Lvl 1, Empower Spell Lvl 2, Inspect Lvl 1->2, Mana Shield Lvl 1, Mana Bolt Lvl 3->4, Telekinesis Lvl 1, Spell Break Lvl 1, Interrupt Spell Lvl 1, Clean Lvl 10

Fire Spells:

Flame Control Lvl 1, Burn Lvl 1, Firewall Lvl 1

Water Spells:

Water Manipulation Lvl 1, Fog Lvl 1, Breath of Water Lvl 1

Ice Spells:

Freeze Lvl 1, Frozen Dagger Lvl 1, Ice Wall Lvl 1

Earth Spells:

Earth Manipulation Lvl 3, Earth Wall Lvl 1, Dirt to Mud Lvl 1, Mud to Stone Lvl 1, Quicksand Lvl 1, Mud Shot Lvl 1

Nature Spells:

Plant Control Lvl 1, Growth Lvl 1, Wall of Thorns Lvl 1

Wind Spells:

Gust Lvl 1, Feather-Fall Lvl 1->2, Wind Arrow Lvl 1, Air Dome Lvl 1

Lightning Spells:

Spark Lvl 1, Chain Lightning Lvl 1

Light Spells:

Light Lvl 1, Flash Lvl 1, Cure Lvl 1, Mend Lvl 1, Purify Lvl 1, Heal Lvl 2,

Mind Spells:

Mind Shield Lvl 1

Shadow Spells:

Night Vision Lvl 1, Silence Lvl 1, Poison Cloud Lvl 1, Shadow Crows Lvl 1

Arts:

Dagger Arts Lvl 1, Bow Arts Lvl 1, Pugilist Arts Lvl 1, Siege Weapon Arts Lvl 1

Skills:

Tracking Lvl 1, Identify Trap Lvl 1, Danger Sense Lvl 8, Stealth Lvl 4, Running Lvl 1, Steady Hands Lvl 1, Precise Strike Lvl 1, Pain Resistance Lvl 4, Mental Resistance Lvl 1, Fear Resistance Lvl 2, Heat Resistance Lvl 1, Cold Resistance Lvl 1, Lightning Resistance Lvl 1, Poison Resistance Lvl 2, Soul Manipulation Resistance Lvl 1, Acting Lvl 1, Light Armor Lvl 1, Heavy Armor Lvl 1, Writing Lvl 1, Cooking Lvl 1, Herbalism Lvl 1, Architect Lvl 1, Mathematics Lvl 2, Measurement Lvl 1, Farmer Lvl 1, Hoe Arts Lvl 1, Sickle Arts Lvl 1, Hammer Arts Lvl 1, Cartography Lvl 1, Trapmaking Lvl 1, Cleaning Lvl 1, Trading Lvl 1, Appraisal Lvl 1, Decrease Price Lvl 1

I added the extra stat point to intelligence, got my headache, and then nodded my head at my progress. I still had a lot of spells I needed to go through and test, but it was good progress for day two.

After closing the screen, I kept moving. I continued to cast inspect as I walked too. I had leveled it up, but it took forever to do. Any progress is progress though, so I kept going.

The next few hours thankfully were mostly peaceful. The forest, for the most part, continued to get lighter and wider. The distance between trees got much wider and it wasn’t until almost dinner time that I saw it, smoke.

I moved my head to get a better view of it, but I wasn’t hallucinating! It was smoke!

I looked at the tree I was under and cast feather-fall on myself. I then jumped as high as I could and grabbed onto a branch. I then pulled myself up and grabbed the next one and the next one, until I was at the top of the tree. Now at the top, I moved to where the smoke came from and looked.

What I saw made me smile, farms. Lots of them in the distance. Only a few miles away. I almost couldn’t control my excitement. People! I found them!

I let out a sigh and smiled. It was dangerous, but I finally found civilization. I then jumped down and let feather-fall do its work.

Once back on the ground I continued my slow steady pace. I didn’t run, or rush. I knew I was close. But that also meant that they were close to me. I didn’t want to rush into anything unprepared. I wanted to scout them out first before I entered civilization. Yes, I only had 61 days until the abyss arrived, but I needed to know what I was dealing with. Information is king after all. So I will continue the course.