Chapter 006

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‘ ‘ for thoughts.

“ “ for speech.

Please point out any mistakes/inconsistencies you find and feel free to comment on anything regarding this FF.

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Jack went downstairs into the catacombs. It was eerily lit in a flickering turquoise blue light. The light originated from glowing crystals embedded in the walls of the dungeon. Jack saw a twisting path wide enough for three people to walk abreast. The walls were constructed with stone, and there were many doors leading sideways from the main path. Jack brought out his NOTEPAD and created a new note for catacomb map. He sketched the main path and marked all the side doors he could perceive. ‘I don’t have cartography or any map making skill this should be enough. Hopefully this place in not a maze, or I am screwed.’ Jack thought as he cautiously opened a door and peeked into a large room.

Inside he saw a couple of giant rats. They came up to his waists, on all fours. The fur on their back was a bit taller and was blue green in color. In comparison, the fur on the rest of their body was grey with a bluish tint. They were gnawing on some sort of brownish grass, growing in between the cracks on the brick floor. The rats immediately sniffed in Jack’s direction and charged at him. Jack quickly activated mana fist and charged at them.

The rats were surprisingly agile, and one of the rats tried to bite his thigh. Jack quickly deflected the rat’s head with a swipe of his palm, and punched the other rat in its head activating a force blast. Jack could see the rat’s HP drop by about 15% and it was stunned. Before it could recover, Jack jabbed his index and middle fingers into each of the rat’s eye with both his hands and fired two simultaneous force blasts. The rat had barely a quarter of its remaining. Jack used his embedded fingers as leverage to move the stunned rat’s head downwards, while he smashed the rats jaw with his knee. He then let the rat’s head go, and smashed the side of its head with his right elbow. The rat had a sliver of HP left and Jack finished it off with another punch with his left fist.

Jack had used up a third of his MP to deal with one of the rats in a few seconds. He turned and rushed towards the other rat. It had recovered but it wasn’t moving towards Jack aggressively. On the contrary, it was backing away slowly. Jack walked towards it but as soon as he was within 2 meters of it, he was unable to move his legs and fell down knee first. Jack barely managed to avoid falling on his face using what little use of his arms he retained.

Jack was now paralyzed and in a kneeling position. Jack noticed that there were shimmering greenish dust particles around him. ‘Shit. Shit. Shit. The green fur on its back almost looks like some fungus! I got paralyzed by that vermin’s spores. I shouldn’t have gotten overconfident…now I am fucked.’ Jack thought as the rat approached him. The fungus on its back kept on releasing the paralyzing spores. The rat tore his pants and nibbled his thigh.

Jack felt some pain as if his thigh was being sliced by scissors. Pain was dulled ingame, but it still felt significant. He noticed that the rat was taking his time skinning a part of his thigh. ‘This bastard has paralyzed me and plans to slowly eat me alive. Oh I will wipe the floor with his ass once I can move.’ Jack thought, but he knew that the spores were being released steadily to keep him paralyzed. The rat was biting his thigh muscle now. Jack noticed that his HP was dropping steadily and that his wounds were bleeding. The rat was lapping up his blood and continuing its nibbling.

At the sight of the rat’s dine and wine on his flesh and blood, Jack flipped out. He used every ounce of his consciousness to move his arms and simultaneously started gathering all of his mana in his palms. His HP had dropped around to 80%. Jack was able to slightly move his fingers. He redoubled his efforts to place his palms on the rat’s head. The rat was unconcerned and enjoying its meal. Jack had finished gathering all his mana in the forms of densely packed layers on his palm.

With all his might Jack managed to move his arms, as if in slow motion, and placed his palms on the rat’s head. The rat was in a frenzy now rapidly wounding his thigh with its claws and drinking his blood. Jack’s HP had dropped to 40% now. He finally managed to place his palms on the rat’s head and released all of his mana as a big concussive blast directly into the rat’s brain. The rat’s skull exploded and shrapnel consisting of bone along with blood and brain flew in all directions. Some of it hit jack, but fortunately not on his face or eyes.

The rat had met a grisly end, but still the fungus on its back was steadily releasing spores. Jack struggled for what felt like hours, but in reality was closer to a few minutes, and he was able to stand up. The fungus was still releasing its spores, but it was a lot less now. Jack figured that he had somehow developed a partial resistance to the paralyzing spores. So with both the rats dead, he did what seemed perfectly sensible to him. He exhaled completely, bent down a little and drew a deep breath and filled his lungs with the paralyzing spore.

Jack dropped on the rat’s carcass unable to move a muscle. He kept breathing as much of the spore he could, and attempted to move with all his might. Soon he could move his full body, if only at a fraction of its original speed. The shimmering fog of spores had almost disappeared. Jack ruffled the fur like fungus on the rat’s back and was rewarded with another release of the paralyzing spores. Jack repeated this process with the other rat’s corpse. ‘It seems that more spores are released when the rat is live. I should grind whatever this is by finishing most rats in a group except one. I should do this until I am near to death or completely unaffected by the spores.’ Jack pondered his course of action as Jack browsed his notifications.

Jack had leveled up six times by killing the two rats. This meant that the rats were of a much higher level than him. He had gained a few stat points and unlocked a new special stat, namely Indomitable Body. He hadn’t gained any new skills, but his mana manipulation skill had leveled up to Beginner level 4. ‘Guess channeling all my mana to the point that it was almost out of control while being paralyzed helped to level it up quite a bit. Still, I expected it to increase more considering the effort it took.’

Jack thought as he analyzed his skill growth. Jack decided to save up his stats for the time being and only invest them if he died in this dungeon. To his playing style, all stats were useful to varying degrees. He still didn’t have a concrete road map so as to in which direction to build his avatar. Hence jack decided to abstain for the moment. He mentally summoned stat information on Indomitable Body.

Stat NameIndomitable BodyStat TypeSpecial

This special stat reflects your ability to shrug off physical status effects. This stat increases your resistance to and chance to ignore physical status effects like paralysis, freeze and stun. This stat is more effective with a higher amount of Willpower. You cannot invest stat points into this stat.

‘Pretty good! Looks like this stat synergizes with Willpower. I get more out of willpower than just MP regen and some magic defense with this stat. I should grind this stat as much as I can. Who knows when I will get another opportunity? I guess I should rest now and explore rest of this fucked up dungeon with its mutated giant rats.’ Jack thought before he entered meditation.

After Jack recovered his HP and MP, he skinned the rat with his starter dagger and studied his foe. The fungus grew almost an inch deep into the rat’s flesh. Jack decided to harvest the rat for loot. He cut their tails off, extracted their claws and teeth. He also tried to harvest as much of their skin as he could. He also harvested some meat out of one limb. He did that to check test whether raw meat rotted in his inventory or not.

Jack spent almost all of his time ingame days to kill the rats and harvest as much of it as he could. Turns out that meat did rot in his inventory. He made many quite a few trips to the training hall to store his loot and refill his water canteen. Jack took this as an opportunity to grind his Mana Identification and Mana Repair skills with system assist, before storing the loot. After a quick negotiation with Instructor Theon, which involved hugging the Instructor’s legs and begging, he had a deal inked out for Janus to sell his loot on his behalf. Instructor Theon had some contact in the guild of alchemists, who could use the dead fungus and the rat’s tail as reagents. The rat’s skin was too low quality to use, and his horrible skinning didn’t help either .But it could be sold to the tailor’s guild, for their initiates to practice tailoring on leather. In return for this convenience Theon and Janus would each keep 5% of the proceeds.

Jack figured that as he wasn’t slaying legendary dragons, the loss of 10% loot wouldn’t matter much in the long time. He would get more time to hunt those bastard rats, resulting in more loot. He also loaned some spit and flints from instructor Theon. Whenever he was low on satiety, he would exit the catacombs, gather some branches, and roast rat meat over a small fire and eat it. It tasted bitter and was quite tough, but it filled his satiety. He didn’t want to disrupt his hunting sessions to go the library three times a day for free meals.

Before venturing into the catacombs, Jack would mix soil with water from his canteen, making a thick paste which he would rub all over his body and tattered set of beginner clothes. He would then tie a few pieces of rat fur on himself with rat tails. This proved quite effective to mask his scent. He would then lure a single rat by flinging force imbibed darts at it, thus separating it from its group. Then he would break and/or dislocate all the limbs of the rat. He would then coax the rat to produce the paralyzing spores by rubbing its back. He would continue inhaling as much as he could, all the while he improved his ability to resist it and move under its effect. Whenever the tortured rat couldn’t produce any more spores, Jack moved on to the next rat.

Initially when he entered town, the other players would make fun of him as the unarmed mud eating n00b, and the guards muttered about crazy travelers. The guards however, knew he was favoured by Theon, and hence tolerated him without much of a fuss. Soon other players got bored of taunting him when they failed to provoke a reaction and left him alone.

The first level of the catacombs unfortunately, didn’t have much loot other than whatever he harvested from the rats. After killing about 60 rats, while grinding his indomitable body on their spores, Jack noticed that he was completely immune to their paralyzing effect. He then quickly slaughtered the remaining rats, taking them in groups and using force blasts from mana fist to dispatch them. Sometimes, just for a change of pace, he would gather multiple groups, each consisting of 2-4 rats, and kill them all without using mana fists, while his health reached critical levels. He figured that he shouldn’t lose touch of his pure unarmed skills by becoming overly reliant on mana fists. In this manner jack explored every nook and cranny of the first level of the catacombs and killing another hundred rats or so.

Somewhere in between, jack had gotten rid of his tattered set of beginner clothes and procured multiple set of beginner clothes for cheap with the help of Instructor Theon and Janus. He had noticed that his vitality and constitution rose faster, when his health was low in the thick of battle. So he figured, why the hell should he waste money on armor at this stage and just have the cheapest clothes he could acquire to simply not be naked. Jack had cleared out the first level of the catacombs in eight ingame days, and was ready to proceed to the next level, when he decided to summarize his status and skills:

STATUS WINDOWNameJackClassNoviceRaceHumanGenderMaleLevel23 (58.94%)Fame / Infamy20 / 0TitlePackrat, Vermin ExterminatorCONDITIONHP1530/1530HP/s1.7901/sMP705/705MP/s4.5513/sStamina1515/1515STA/s21.3174/sSatiety / Thirst86% / 86%Weight Limit13.5/130Active EffectsControlled Breathing (Intermediate lv2)BASIC STATSStrength65Vitality68Dexterity64Agility67Intelligence61Willpower65Free Stat Points115SPECIAL STATSLuck10Endurance62Sustenance61Balance56Flexibility58Concentration59Wisdom57Indomitable Body38Elemental AffinityPhysical12%Elemental ResistancePhysical2%

SKILL LISTAmbidexterity (Trait)Mana Manipulation (Beginner Lv 7: 85.67%)

Imbibe Projectile (Beginner Lv 6: 53.26%)

Mana Identification (Beginner Lv 2: 12.43%)

Mana Repair (Beginner Lv 3: 01.42%)

Meditation (Intermediate Lv 5: 94.63%)

Controlled Breathing (Intermediate Lv 2: 21.23%)

Meditative Stasis (Trait)

Survival (Beginner Lv 2: 26.36%)

Survival Cooking (Beginner Lv 3: 13.25%)

Survival Stealth (Beginner Lv 2: 35.24%)

Thrown Weapon Mastery (Intermediate Lv 2: 19.18%)

Axe Throwing (Beginner lv 5: 87.34%)

Boomerang Throwing (Beginner Lv 9: 12.25%)

Chakram Throwing (Beginner Lv 6: 67.34%)

Dart Throwing (Intermediate Lv 1: 45.14%)

Javelin Throwing (Intermediate lv1: 29.54%)

Knife Throwing (Intermediate Lv 1: 27.78%)

Unarmed Mastery (Intermediate Lv 3: 02.23%)

Mana Fists (Beginner Lv 7: 65.68%)

After reaching Lv20, Jack’s leveling on the rats had slowed down immensely. At lv 23, each rat gave a measly 0.02% increase in his experience towards the next level. Jack had gained another new title, “Vermin Exterminator”. This title allowed him to do 10% bonus damage to rats and gain a slight bonus to his intimacy with merchants, but caused him to suffer slight penalties to his intimacy with nobles. Jack thought that it was really ironic both of his titles were related to rats. Jack had also obtained a new skill called Survival, and two of its subskills. Jack summoned their skill info.

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:SurvivalBeginner226.36%

You have learnt how to survive without civilization. This skill improves the effectiveness of various subskills.

Current level effects:

+4% to subskill benefits.

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Survival CookingBeginner313.25%Subskill of Survival

You have learnt to cook with ingredients obtained from the wild. Each level in this skill improves the taste of your cooking and provides a bonus to vitality.

Current level effects:

+6 to Vitality.

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Survival StealthBeginner213.25%Subskill of Survival

You have learnt to mask your presence to setup ambushes. Each level in this skill improves the chance of being undetected, when moving stealthily and provides a bonus to agility.

Current level effects:

+4 to Agility.

Survival helped Jack to…survive on the cheap, so it was definitely useful. Also free stat bonuses are always welcome! Of course, Jack could never cook up food as good as a dedicated chef, who probably used expensive ingredients to gain stat boosts, but he could do without buying ingredients and use monster meat to survive and save money! Speaking of money Jack’s loot had gathered him around 2 gold, 39 silver and 12 copper in total.

The rat skin was practically worthless, but the alchemists valued the tails greatly and paid around 1 silver 50 coppers for each of them. The fangs and claws were also of some value to the alchemists who paid 12 coppers for the fangs and claws of a single rat. Jack was poor for his level, because the monsters he hunted gave him valuable xp, but many lower level monsters gave far better loot. A wolf pelt in decent condition fetched 5 silvers in the tailor’s guild for example. And they were actually far easier to hunt than the monstrous rats. Sighing at his poverty, Jack went deeper into the catacombs.

The next level of the catacombs was in contrast to the first level. Jack saw a large, roughly rectangular cavern. There were no side doors, but along the edges there were some tombs numbering perhaps half a dozen on each side. A dim reddish glow suffused the level. As jack proceeded cautiously, he heard the clattering of bones form the four tombs closes to him. He saw one skeleton from each of them rising out of their tombs. They were naked, expect for a rust irony skull cap on their skulls. They had no eyes, instead each of their eye sockets had dark purplish glow emanating from it. Two of them were equipped with a set of sword and shield, one of them had a war hammer and the last one had a 7 feet long spear.

Jack rushed towards the spear wielding skeleton, deeming it the largest threat. The skeleton attempted to poke him, But Jack angled his path to slam the skeleton with his left shoulder. The skeleton lost its balance and its HP dropped by 8%. Jack turned to see the war hammer wielding skeleton clanked towards him with its weapon raised high. Jack quickly threw a force imbibed dart at its weapon and succeeded in knocking it down. The two sword and shield wielding skeletons were moving defensively, trying to flank him. Before they could Jack rolled forward and dir a leg sweep to simultaneously knock down both of them.

By now, the spear wielding skeleton had recovered and jabbed Jack. Jack was barely able to sidestep, causing the spear to hit his arm and jack’s Hp dropped by 10%. Jack quickly activated mana fist on both his hands. He then used his left arm to fling the spear sideways with a force blast. Jack then struck the spear skeleton with his right arm and activated a force blast. To Jack’s surprise the skeleton lost only 12% of its HP and still 80% left. ‘This pile of bones doesn’t have internal organs. Guess I need to modify my mana fists a bit.’ Jack tripped the clumsy skeleton again and manipulated mana on his right hand to fit like a glove. He then imbibed his mana glove with force and clenched his fist.

The war hammer wielding skeleton had recovered and was rushing towards Jack trying to crush him with a sideways swing. Jack quickly lunged into grappling range and strikes the warhammer skeleton’s ribs with his knees causing it to topple backwards. The warhammer skeleton toppled backwards and lost a tenth of its HP. Jack then smashed the skeleton’s skull with his right fist and the skeletons skull cracked. The skeleton lost almost a quarter of its HP.

Jack noticed out of the corner of his eyes that the two skeletons with sword and shield had recovered and were coming at him from his left. Jack rolled to his right to gain some distance and stood. His force glove was effective on the skeletons, but it drained his MP faster than mana fist. Jack readied a dart in his left hand, imbibed it with force and aimed at the eye socket of one of the sword n’ shield skeletons. The skeleton lost almost 20% of its Hp and got disoriented. Jack lunged at the other sword skeleton, flicked away its sword and gave it a force glove punch angled sideways; the skeleton lost its balance and tangled with his companion.

Jack then returned to the war hammer skeleton, and disarmed it quickly before it could recover fully. He then did a running dash towards the spear skeleton who had recovered. Jack braced himself for impact and lost 15% of his max HP, leaving him with three forth of his HP. He then did a quick twirl and smashed the skeleton with a powerful two handed blow form the stolen war hammer. The spear skeleton lost a half of its Hp and was knocked back.

Jack heard the unarmed skeleton clattering towards him. ‘I fight unarmed bitch! You can have your shitty war hammer back.’ Jack thought as he spun and threw the war hammer at it. The skeleton tried to evade, but was too slow to do so. It had a fifth of its Hp left. Jack activated force glove on his left hand and started pummeling the spear skeleton. After four hits, the skeleton lost the glimmer in its eye sockets and was rendered inanimate. Before the war hammer wielding skeleton could arm itself, jack rushed towards it and pummeled it relentlessly. Within half a dozen hits the war hammer skeleton was out of commission.

Jack had around 65% of his Hp left and a little over half his mana. The two sword skeletons had recovered and were charging towards him aggressively. Jack deactivated his force gloves, grabbed the war hammer and threw it towards them with a half spin. Jack then rolled backwards, grabbed the spear lying on the ground, infused it with force and threw it with all his might at the sword skeleton with lower HP who was unbalanced by the war hammer missile.

The spear hit the skeleton’s ribcage and was stuck there. It had around a third of its Hp left. The other skeleton recovered and charged at him. Jack activated mana fists, and used the charging skeleton’s momentum against it to throw it towards a nearby tomb. The skeleton cracked audibly and lost 20% of its HP to have around half remaining. Jack rushed at the other skeleton, and started pummeling it with his fists and legs just before it could recover. After around 8 hits, the skeleton collapsed.

There was only one skeleton remaining, left with half of its HP. Jack then took the nearby shield from the now unanimated skeleton, imbibed it with force and threw it like a Frisbee towards the remaining skeleton. The skeleton was able to block the metal Frisbee with its shield, but staggered backwards visibly. It didn’t perceive Jack rushing towards it. Jack stepped sideways, activated force gloves and pummeled its flank. Within a few hits, the remaining skeleton was rendered inanimate. The whole adrenaline fuelled battle lasted over a minute.

‘Dealing with these piles of bone was a bitch. I have only half my HP and a third of my MP remaining.’ Jack thought. He noticed that he had gained roughly 40% of xp and was very close to leveling up. He sat, intending to meditate to recover his lost HP and Mp, when he felt goose bumps all over his body. Not wanting to discard his gut feeling, Jack quickly gulped a few health and mana potions, recovering all his HP and MP.

Jack stood up on his guard and saw around half a dozen skeletons, who were wielding large two handed weapons like claymores and war hammers. But the most fearsome sight was the figure towering in between them. It stood over eight feet tall and looked like a massive bat dragging itself with its long forelimbs. Its forelimbs lacked the leathery skin that bats usually had and it looked funny dragging itself with its forelimbs, but its jaws looked extremely powerful with canines measuring almost four inches. ‘Oh boy, I am going to get so screwed.’ Jack thought

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