New World Day 31

The fire crackled and raged on in front of me warming and lighting up the garage. The light broke upon the facets of my eyes and cast the garage in a rainbow of colors. The search for a facet that would allow me to see fire mana progressed slowly but surely. I retrieved some additional kindling and logs for rune practice and fuel for the fire and worked on the basics for both sets of runes while I searched for the right settings for the facet.

I was itching to try carving the lightning runes from the rune axe, but I managed to hold myself back. The memory of the hobgoblin shattering the barriers with just two strikes was fresh in my mind. A mistake carving runes of that level of power could end me in an instant. Unless I had resistance to lightning magic. Hmm. I resisted the impulse to buy the Lightning Resistance skill from the System. I reminded myself that those points were needed for other skills, but I filed away that idea for the future. It was a good idea. I just had more pressing needs at the moment.

Hours later I found myself blinded by a torrent of red tinted mana pouring out from the fire. I closed my eyes in order to shut out the blinding light, but the pain coursing through my eyes failed to dim my delight. Success! That made five settings for my Mana Vision skill. Earth mana was the next target since it should be everywhere. It might be hard to separate it from life mana though. Not like I had any other choice anyways. I thought about ice, but I lacked the ability to produce any right now.

Enough of that for now. I stood up, cracked my neck, and shook the tightness out of my limbs. Time to move, to dance, to do anything but sit and think and worry. I was overflowing with energy. I snagged the rune axe off of the ground and started training my physical training. When I first started training the two footwork skills, I saw them as a something similar to a dance. There was a rhythm to them at their core, but after the fight with the hobgoblin, I caught a glimpse of something else. The hobgoblin’s movements were smooth and followed the path of least resistance like flowing water while my movements were rough and jerky. They got things done, but I spent too much time and energy executing them. I envisioned the hobgoblin’s steps and strikes and attempted to integrate them into my training.

Blood and sweat mingled together and streamed down the axe handle. As the handle slashed through the air, the droplets flew across the room and splattered the walls red. To think replicating his movements was this difficult. The blisters on my hands closed up and disappeared in seconds only for new ones to break out with the next swing. I didn’t stop or rest for more than a few seconds.

A ravenous hunger forced me to abandon my training around dinner time. I stoked the fire, tossed in a few more logs, and went over to the raptor legs. I used the rune axe to split the skin down the length of each leg and carved the meat off of the bone and skin. I stashed the bone, skins, and claws at the back of the garage and tossed a few pieces of the meat on the fire. I wanted to see if I could use the skin and claws for armor and weapons. The bones I kept for carving practice.

When I finished eating dinner, my jaw ached from chewing, and I found myself picking pieces of sinew from my teeth. I was glad that I only took the two legs. Eating that meat multiple days in a row would break my jaw. That was the first meal made from a magical creature that wasn’t delicious. I thought it would be nice to diversify my meals somewhat, but I regretted that decision now. There was something to be said for sticking to your routine.

A scream and a tremor strong enough to shake the entire house interrupted my internal grousing. I snatched my axe and ran up the stairs to the first floor. When I reached the first floor, I crouched down and snuck over to the front door. I couldn't see the cause from that window so I sprinted over to the side door and looked for the cause of the commotion from there. I saw a small group of four goblins trying to fend off the python and the frog. There were chunks of meat and bone in a crater near the frog that were all that was left of the screamer. The frog dragged its blood soaked belly along the ground as it chased after the nearest two goblins.

The goblins showed more bravery than intelligence. They charged the frog and hacked away at it with their stone axes, but the weapons only scratched the frog’s leathery hide and enraged the frog. It pushed a long thick pink tongue out of its mouth, raised its head up, and whipped the tongue down at the goblins. The tongue shattered the goblins’ bones and smashed them into the ground. The goblins spasmed a couple of times and then stopped moving altogether.

The other two goblins were either more intelligent or more cowardly than their companions. They ran rather than face the frog or the python. The frog was busy dealing with their compatriots, but they couldn’t escape the python. It launched a volley of scales towards the goblins and a few of them embedded themselves in the goblins’ backs. I winced in sympathy. I knew first hand how much pain those scales caused.

The injuries didn’t kill the goblins, but they slowed them long enough for the python to catch up. It slithered up to the the two goblins, flared out those barbed scales, coiled its body around the two of them, and twisted. Nothing I had seen in the New World so far was as gruesome as the end result of that action. I felt my dinner burning its way up my throat and forced it back down with a gulp. Those poor bastards. If I had caught them at least it would have been relatively painless. To make matters worse, those images were forever burned into my memory thanks to the Flawless Memory skill.

I watched as the two beasts gulped down their respective kills, glared at each other, and then retreated to their respective homes. The question of why those two creatures were so active today disturbed me almost as much as the memory of what they had done. After I thought it over more, I found that it wasn’t their level of activity that bothered me. It was the fact that they didn’t fight each other over the corpses. They had fought tooth and nail over a couple of crayfish tails, but they didn’t even try to steal the other’s food today. Something was up.

Once I was sure they were gone, I climbed up to the second floor and surveyed the area through the great room’s intact upper windows. I wanted to know if there was a hint anywhere about the reason for their actions. I stared through the windows and switched between my normal sight, Mana Vision, and all of my elemental settings. When I looked at the lake with my life element Mana Vision, I found what I was looking for. The lake was always full of life and mana, but now the edges of the lake overflowed with life mana. There was twenty times more life mana there than in the entire surrounding area put together. I couldn’t tell what was causing the build up of mana, but I was willing to bet that whatever it was was responsible for the truce between the python and the frog.

I focused mana in my eyes and enhanced my vision to my current limits. The shoreline came into greater focus and clarity. It was like I had put a pair of binoculars up to my eyes, but it still wasn’t enough. I smacked my forehead at that thought. Binoculars! Why didn’t I think of them before? I ran down stairs and rummaged through the first floor closets. It took me a few minutes, but I found a pair of quality binoculars.

I knew my parents had some here, but I forgot about them. They liked to use them for bird watching and spotting wildlife. I took the binoculars to the second floor and combined them with my enhanced vision to examine the lake’s shoreline. The resulting combination allowed me to see what was releasing all of that life mana. Eggs. Countless tiny eggs lined the shoreline. Was it the blood mosquitoes again or was some fresh hell about to descent upon the area? The python and frog feared the eggs enough that they had a truce and were stocking up on food. I was going to take the hint and do the same.

Endurance increased by 1!

Strength increased by 1!

Speed increased by 1!

Agility increased by 2!

Mind increased by 1!

Fool © * leveled up!

Beginner Axe Mastery © * leveled up!

Minor Disease Resist (Passive) © * leveled up!

Minor Parasite Resist (Passive) © *leveled up!

Minor Poison Resist (Passive) © * leveled up!

Lesser Mana Control (UC) * leveled up!

Beginner Close Combat Footwork (Active) © * leveled up!

Beginner Close Combat Footwork (Active) © * leveled up!

Beginner Barrier Runes (Active) © * leveled up!

Basic Alarm Runes (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Alarm Runes (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Minor Mana Enhancement (Active) © * leveled up!

Minor Mana Vision (Active) © leveled up!

Minor Mana Vision (Active) © leveled up!