New World Day 9

For the first time in what felt like an eternity I awoke not because of fear, pain, or my bladder, but instead because of my growling stomach. The lantern that lit up the surrounding area flickered from lack of power. I hadn’t had time to switch it off before I passed out the previous night. That combined with my rumbling stomach and stiff body meant that I had been out for quite awhile this time. Before I made any attempt to stand up, I glanced down at my right hand and saw that the two long cuts were much better now. They didn’t look completely healed yet. I clenched my fist and wiggled my fingers without popping them back open so that was good. I attempted to move my left arm next. A slight stab of pain shot through my body, but it was well within the range that I could handle now. Good! I was on the way to a complete recovery!

Now that I had checked out my injuries, I extended both legs flat on the ground and started to stretch my body. Fifteen minutes later I felt loose enough that I used the workbench behind me to pull myself to my feet. I needed to check out a lot of things before I could make a plan for the day. I picked up the lantern and walked down the hall towards the garage. The door to the garage remained ajar, and not a single speck of light shone in the garage. That answered the question of if it was night or day. I was about to close the door and grab a late dinner when I heard growls and screams from just outside the garage door.

I knew I should close the door and walk away, but my curiosity got the better of me. I was confident that the growls were from forest coyotes and the screams from goblins. Was the creature that left those larger footprints out there? I had to know. I put down the lantern with care and walked to the entrance of the garage. When I got to the doorway, I crouched down and waddled over to the nearest garage door window. Then I raised myself up enough to take a peek out the window. Dark clouds obscured the moon and made it very difficult to see anything through the window, but I saw a few dozen dark shapes moving in the moonless night. A little over half of them were squat and on four legs. Those would be the forest coyotes. The remainder of them had a small slightly hunched shape reminiscent of the goblins I fought before. All except one.

The last form was twice the size of the other dark shapes. It was just a couple of inches shorter than me. The darkness hid the detailed features, but it looked like it had a physique larger than yet similar to the smaller goblins. I wanted to get as much information as I could about this creature. I continued to watch the brawl between the two sides. I should have stopped pushing my luck and went back to the workshop. I watched as the creature stood at the back of the goblin horde and presided over the fight. A few times throughout the fight it would raise an arm and bark out a command to the goblins who scrambled to fulfill its commands. The forest coyotes had the edge in numbers at the beginning, but the goblin's weapons and higher intelligence took their toll. The crunch of gravel and painful whines and screams echoed through the night. Blood no doubt stained the gravel, but the shadows of the night hid it from view. When the numbers of the pack dwindled to half, the largest one charged the creature. It darted through the ranks of goblins with astonishing speed and agility and launched itself at the creature. I thought the creature might be in danger, but the final result dropped my jaw in awe. When the forest coyote was about to slam into the creature, it snaked around the side of the lunging beast and slashed down with a long bladed weapon. The blow cut the forest coyote in two mid-lunge. The creature’s movements turned its face in my direction. As if it sensed my stare, it raised up its head and stared back in my direction. The sudden movement caught me unawares and I dropped down out of sight. I hoped and prayed the darkness hid me from the creature’s sight.

I refused to stick around to see if it would come over and investigate the garage door. My time was better spent making preparations in case it did come for me. I held my breath, stole over to the middle ATV, and pulled the shotgun off of the seat. I felt safer now that I was armed, but not safe enough to stay in the garage. I stayed low and crept into the workshop hallway. I twisted the door knob and closed the door like a teenager sneaking back in after curfew. Not even a whisper escaped as I let go of the door knob. Perfect. Back in the hallway, I grabbed the lantern and ran to the bedroom door. I picked up some granola bars and a few bottles of water from the fridge before I ran into the bedroom. I sat on the loveseat in the middle of the room and checked over the shotgun in the flickering light of the lantern. Satisfied that the shotgun remained in working order, I cracked open the door to the garage and slipped in again. I used the seat of the Ranger to help me aim at the garage door and waited. I heard some faint barks and screeches still from outside, but the garage doors insulated me from much of the outside sound. Without warning, the noises disappeared. Here was the moment of truth. If the creature had seen me or my shape in the window then it might come to investigate. Minutes ticked by and sweat trickled down my brow. The sound of gravel crunching sent my mind into overdrive, but the sound grew fainter and fainter. They were walking away from the garage. Still, I didn’t dare to let my guard down. I pointed the shotgun at the door to the garage for over an hour before I let out a long sigh of relief and put the shotgun down. I guess it didn’t see me after all. Even so, what fearsome instincts to sense me watching it from all the way at the end of the driveway. That creature was someone to be wary of.

Satisfied I was safe, I walked back into the bedroom. Time to take care of my physical needs. I wolfed down the granola bars and bottles of water followed by using one bottle and a dirty old bucket for less hygienic purposes. What? I wasn’t going outside right now, and I couldn’t hold it any longer. I stashed the bottle and bucket in the corner of the garage for disposal once morning arrived. My physical body was in too bad of a shape to do any physical training and my mind needed a rest after the frantic night. That left my journals. I recorded my experiences in my journals and looked at what skills I might be able to purchase from the System. I had quite a few points to spend now. I wanted two types in particular. One was a type of healing skill for the Spirit. There wasn’t one before, but with my new stat I hoped one was available to purchase now. The cracks in my inner world were healing but at a snail’s pace. I worried that it might take weeks to heal at this rate. The second skill I desired was some type of footwork. My inability to dodge the python’s scale along with the smooth actions of the creature earlier tonight drove home how important footwork was to my survival. I had no idea how to train or learn footwork myself. Hence, I hoped the System had something for me.

I commanded the System to list all of the new skills available to me, and an enormous list appeared in front of me. I wanted to record each skill in my journal, but there were far too many to write down at the moment. Time was precious after all. I ordered the System to narrow the skills down to healing skills and then to spiritual healing skills. The final list was much more manageable.

Available Spiritual Healing Skills:

Basic Spirit Recovery (Active) (B) * Cost: 2 point

Basic Spirit Recovery (Passive) (B) * Cost: 4 points

Basic Spirit Regeneration (Active) (B) * Cost: 4 points

Basic Spirit Regeneration (Passive) (B) * Cost: 8 points

One obvious choice sprang out from the small list. It was expensive, but its physical equivalent had saved my ass a multitude of times already. I didn’t hesitate at all and purchased the skill Basic Spirit Regeneration (Passive) (B) *. After purchasing the skill, I waited and sure enough power poured into my body from all around me. I was much more sensitive to mana after the experiences of the previous night, and the sheer amount flooding into my body was unreal. All of the mana from last night was just like a drop of water in the ocean compared to this. I was sure that there was more mana involved in the granting of this skill than the three resistance skills. Thinking it through it made sense. It took a lot more to purchase this skill than the resistance skills. I guessed that meant that the amount of energy required to grant a skill was determined at least in part by the cost of the skill. The process took five minutes this time, and like the previous two times it wasn’t painful. Just very very discomforting. The most similar experience I could think of would be if you were awake during a surgery and could feel the surgeon mucking around in your body with no pain but you could feel the movements in your body. Uncomfortable to say the least.

I needed to shake off that feeling. I turned my attention to my inner world and noticed that the cracks dotting the darkness were already healing at a quicker rate. I was sure that as the skill leveled up that the rate would continue to increase. The only thing that I worried about was the drain on my mana regen. The physical regen skill took one mana a minute to maintain, and a quick peek at my Status showed that the spiritual version consumed mana at the same rate. I was surprised that it didn’t max out my current mana regeneration. Come to think of it, my mana regen didn’t used to be that high. In fact, I should have been at a negative. Was that the effect of the spirit stat? Hmmm. Best to find out.

HP: The state of your current health. You will die once it reaches zero. Injuries to the head, heart, and other vital points will still result in nearly instant death.

Endurance: The stat that primarily governs your physical stamina. It also slightly increases your physical defense.

Strength: The stat that primarily governs your physical strength. It also slightly increases your physical defense.

Speed: The stat that primarily governs your physical speed. It also slightly increases your physical stamina.

Spirit: The stat that primarily governs your mana regeneration. It also slightly increases your mana pool.

I was right! It increased my mana regen and the size of my mana lake. Increasing my mana regen was at the top of my to do list. Replenishing my mana via mana stones was dangerous, and they were in short supply. I might need to use a few of my bonus points for my Spirit stat, but there was something else that I needed to figure out first. I noticed that my mana pool had increased by a significant amount after last night as well, but I wasn’t sure if that was caused by awakening the Spirit stat or by one of the mana related skills I gained last night. I called up the skill descriptions in order to find out.

Minor Mana Vein (Passive) (C ) ***** LVL 1 44% : This skill represents permanent veins of mana that the user has created within their spiritual world. The rank of the skill will increase with every ten levels. The skill is one of rarest mana skills. It allows users to circulate mana throughout their entire body with incredible speed and without losing any mana in the process.

Flexible Mana Lake (Passive) (B) *** LVL 1 0% : This skill represents the user’s permanent mana lake within their spiritual world. The rank of the skill will increase with every ten levels. It is a rare skill that not only increases the size of the user’s mana pool depending on the rank of the skill, but also allows the user to temporarily surpass the normal limit of the their mana pool. Increases in rarity are not impossible, but will be very difficult to achieve. Higher rarities increase the amount the user can temporarily surpass their limits by as well as how long they can surpass their limits without consequences. The skill currently increases the user’s mana pool by 20.

Pain Control (B) *** LVL 1 0% : This skill represents the user’s ability to control the pain that they feel. The rank of the skill will increase with every ten levels. It is a rare skill that allows the user to control the physical and spiritual pain that they are currently feeling. The higher the rank the easier it is to control the pain and the more pain the user can control. Higher rarities allow the user to control additional types of pain.

Basic Spirit Regeneration (Passive) (B) * LVL 1 55% : This mana based skill automatically heals the user from any spiritual wound they may receive until their spiritual world returns to its most ideal condition. The rank of the skill will increase with every ten levels. If a wound or wounds are too serious the regeneration may not be able to keep up with the damage and the user could die. At higher ranks and rarities it becomes possible for the user to heal from more serious and greater amounts of wounds. Higher rarities offer a multitude of additional potential benefits, but they often come with a drawback of some kind. Basic Spirit Regen (Passive) (B) * currently automatically takes 1 mana per a minute from the user in order to function. This deduction can not currently be controlled by the user.

After viewing the explanations for my four new skills, it became clear that the increase in the size of my mana lake was due to both the Spirit stat and the Flexible Mana Lake skill. 20 points were from the skill which means that 8 were from the Spirit stat. That meant the Spirit stat increases my mana pool by 2 and my mana regen by a currently unknown amount for each point. Once I had recorded the information about my new stat and skills in my journals, I turned my attention to my new titles.

Extremely Stubborn Fool © ** LVL 2 97% : This title is awarded to any user who makes a number of extraordinarily stubborn and foolish decisions in a short period of time. The more foolish and stubborn decisions made by the user the higher the rank will become. Rarity is determined by how foolish and stubborn decisions truly are. The rank of the title will increase with every ten levels.

Minor Mana Wielder © ***** LVL N/A : This title is awarded to users who learn the 5 star skill Common Mana Vein (Passive) © *****. The title represents the user’s ability to wield mana with great speed and efficiency. The title grants users an increase in mana regen courtesy of the System. At its current rank the System grants an increase of 2 per a minute. The rank of the title will increase every time the rank of the associated skill increases.

Considering I had 4 points in Spirit and my mana regen increased by three full points, that meant that each point of Spirit increased my mana regen by .25. Not bad. Not bad at all. I scribbled down the new information about the Spirit stat and my new titles in my journal. I followed that up by writing down my experiences in creating and earning the various skills and titles before I turned my attention back to the System. There was just one more thing to do before I started training my mana again. I needed to find a good footwork skill!

Basic Spirit Regeneration (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 4 3%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 4 95%

Fool (B) LVL 7 8%

Pack Killer (B) LVL 3 81%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 3 76%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 5 18%

Repeated Risk Taker © LVL 5 92%

Compassionate Fool © LVL 1 78%

Curious Fool © LVL 1 0%

Stupid Fool © LVL 3 37%

Extremely Stubborn Fool © LVL 2 97%

Minor Mana Wielder © LVL N/A

Title Points:

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

**

*****

9

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Spirit

Bonus Points:

64/125

24/38

5 per min (-2)

12

9

7

4

12

Status Effects:

Regen, Spirit Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist, Poison Resist, Spiritual Cracks x24

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 7 56%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 4 78%

Minor Regen (Passive) © LVL 2 41%

Basic Spirit Regen (Passive) (B) LVL 2 50%

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 6 56%

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 6 48%

Basic Poison Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 5 4%

Minor Mana Control © LVL 2 81%

Minor Mana Vein (Passive) © LVL 1 44%

Flexible Mana Lake (Passive) (B) LVL 1 0%

Pain Control (B) LVL 1 0%

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*****

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