The night eventually came to an end and nothing of note came to pass. I watched as the tiny plant slowly formed into a flower- or something similar to it. It did have red and black petals, where the mark was placed on the red ones and glowed black, if that made sense. The stem was normal looking, but the roots looked more like feet. But the biggest thing to note was that the flower wasn’t at the top of the plant, but more like three quarters of the way up the stem. At the top was a weird bud that had eyes and I’m assuming that line in the center of it is where the mouth would be.

“Hm…” I read the display above the plant a few times, but I still didn’t like what I was seeing. [Demonic Dryad {Seedling}] is what it read. So basically, everything I corrupt turns demonic? Am I some sort of demon now?

I turned my attention to the Eliquis that was now stirring awake. Slowly she rose and tenderly poked at her left shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, but…”

“But?”

“It feels like something is under my skin there.”

So basically the Bran is both on the surface level and inside of whoever is marked? So would this be some sort of Living Weapon? Well, if it’s just another weapon, I’m pretty sure I can find a way to use it properly.

I continued to push useless thoughts out of my mind as I got up. Eliquis attempted to get ready to follow me, but I promptly stopped her. “Today, tomorrow, and the next are going to be different. You’re guarding the cave today. I’m gonna take these two and go test a few things, then hopefully return with some more experiments. Then we’ll talk about some pressing matters.”

Eliquis looked at me with an astonished face but then lowered it and nodded slightly asking, “Am I useless?”

“I mean, anyone untrained is useless, but that’s not the issue here. I need to see how useful these two are. If I bring you, then there’s no point in taking them, so consider this a rest day. Tomorrow will be pretty brutal if I get good enough results today.” And with that said, I passed her two fish that I had already caught, deboned and gutted just before she woke up, then left the cave with the slime and the dryad.

I went into the part of the woods that Eliquis and I had gone in yesterday and began running tests as quickly as possible. First I tested how well the slime and dryad could follow orders. They could follow mental orders pretty well, but the farther they were, the longer it took for them to understand what I wanted them to do. But after a few repetitions, they were able to understand pretty well. So practice makes perfect, huh? However, the main point of this test was to judge four pieces of information that had been bothering me since yesterday.

The first was the limitations of the Bran. The original skill could only be used on six people, but the upgrade allowed for an additional twenty-four and allowed me to place it on monsters with some stipulations. So a total of six non-human species and I currently have two. But if I got more slimes, for example, would they all turn into the same species?

The second was what other options were available for monsters to be branded. Originally I had assumed it was only things weaker than me, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case. Or at least I thought there was something more specific so I wanted to test it out, which led closer to the third question.

The third was testing the level system. I had a lot of skills that had ‘I’ at the end, which meant that they were level one. So, I was wondering if they leveled up somehow, but then after taking a closer look at things, it seems that I had a level of my own, and the Freelancer class had its own level. Both were level one, so I wanted to try a few things to raise their levels and see if that changed anything.

And the fourth question also somewhat tied into the third and second. I wanted to know why only that plant could be corrupted. I started to wonder if the air and the earth could be corrupted in specific places, or if it was just living things. And if it’s just living things, what were the conditions to corrupt other plants?

Tomorrow would be the day I get answers on the other questions I had in mind, but I wanted at least two of these questions answered. I needed to find a way to survive using whatever I had available to me, therefore I needed to figure out what I was capable of quickly.

The day crawled by slowly, but using the slime’s ability to mimic other things, it was able to turn into some of the giant lizards we had killed earlier to help us attack some of the monsters in the area. The dryad...was pretty useless all things considered. It just wrapped itself around my waist and stayed on my back shooting out seeds at things. But they were pretty weak, and it didn’t come with the option to obtain skills to begin with, so if push came to shove, I would use this as a meat shield over the slime.

The monsters that I deemed poisonous or dangerous to eat, by instinct, I had the slime and his new friend eat. It took them a good six minutes to devour an entire corpse, but it helped a lot since it got rid of the blood and stench of death that would attract other monsters. By the time the sun was at its zenith, I had placed a bran on two other slimes and they mutated in the same exact way as the first. Which confirmed my suspicions about the first question, but also answered others I was going to answer later on. Adding more numbers to a current species didn’t actually add more skill points for that species. So there was no way I could actually teach them more skills. However, one thing that did happen was fruitful.

[Conditions have been met. Garem has leveled up to 2. All stats increased by 1. Conditions have been met. Freelancer has leveled up to 2. Class corrections increased by 1. Skill points increased by 1. Skill selection increased by 1.]

This is good, but I should check it out later. It doesn’t seem like one level changed much, so let’s see if I can keep increasing my levels a bit more.

We didn’t travel too deeply in the woods, but we were able to kill quite a few monsters in the area and I kept one slime in the back specifically to drain the blood out of anything I wanted to take back as food. I kept peering over at the dryad to see if it was hungry or something, but it just seemed to be comfortable sitting and peering over my shoulder. I didn’t constantly keep creating CMP, but I did so every now and then, which brought me to a point where the black solidified liquid covered me in a jacket- basically I had accumulated forty-one CMP. And that was after I spent two in order to increase the number of slimes. Last night was the first time I created so much in one watch shift and it felt like I was feeling the effects of it, so we began to call it a day and move back towards the river, but then two wolves jumped in front of us, and one came out from behind us.

Fuck, I thought we wiped out the entire pack. I thought to myself as I drew the long sword and focused on the two in front of me. I gave the mental order to have two of the slimes currently carrying out spoils of hunt, drop them and handle the one wolf in the back. Doesn’t look like I can corrupt anything here, so I better drop their numbers quickly. Hold them off as long as possible. After giving my orders, I made sure to move first, charging at the wolf on the left. The wolf next to it tried to intercept me, but it was halted by a flurry of seeds coming from the dryad, while one of the slimes slithered its way over to the wolf in order to buy me some time.

The wolf I was aiming at attempted to dodge to the left in order to find a blind spot to strike me at, but I was quicker. My knife had already found it’s target, its front left paw. The wolf jolted and cried in pain as I closed the distance and stomped on the knife, driving it further through the foot of the wolf and into the ground, then I jumped just out of reach of it’s jaw as it snapped at me. Behind me? I reacted to the thought coming from the dryad turned around thrusting the sword forward, catching the wolf that the slime had attempted to hold off in its jaw. It pierced all the way through and came out of its snout. I quickly threw my weight against the wolf, tossing it to the ground, and giving orders to the slime to help the other two, while the dryad fired another salvo of seeds at the other wounded wolf, while I finished this one off but pulling out my sword and thrusting it into its neck.

I whipped around and charged at the wounded wolf, slashing at it’s other front paw as it tried lashing out at me. My blade made its mark, forcing the wolf into a weird limping movement where it couldn’t maneuver around anymore. With it’s only means of killing me removed from existence, I gave a slight feint of trying to attack it’s chest. The wolf attempted to dodge, but instead I aimed higher and slashed at the wolf's eyes horizontally, and then slashed back in the other direction at it’s skull. I took a second to assess whether it was a threat anymore, and decided that it was going to die shortly either way. So, I ignored it altogether and moved on to the last wolf, which was being held down by all three slimes. Two of them turned into chains, and burrowed under ground, holding its feet in place, while the other was just laying on top of it.

Wolves are dangerous, not only because they hunt in packs, but because they’re agile. Once you restrict their movement, you can further cripple them by taking away their senses one at a time until they’re no longer a threat. I don’t know where this information came from, but I’m glad some part of me had experience fighting these types of creatures in the past. I shoved the sword through the wolf’s skull, then pulled it out, and let the slimes get to work on the corpses. Only one slime didn’t bother and followed me, the original. It followed me to the last wolf that was whimpering and choking on it’s own blood. Killing doesn’t bother me, but it bothers Eliquis. Is it a gender thing? A race thing? Or, is it just me? I questioned these things as I took the last wolf's life and had the original slime clean the blood off the blade. Then I moved to the corpse and yanked out my knife, and tossed it to the slime again to clean up.

Then, out of nowhere a bird swooped down from the sky, but was intercepted by a lucky shot from the dryad. The seed had shot underneath the bird's wing at where its ribs should be, forcing it off course. It was a pretty decent sized bird too, about thirty centimeters long, from beak to tail. But still at a distance of four meters and a moving target at that? I ignored my thoughts and followed the path the bird was forced to take, and met it there, grabbing one of its wings in my hand, then quickly throwing the bird into a nearby tree before it could claw at me. I dashed over to it and stomped on it’s skull three times, until I was sure it was dead.

[Conditions have been met. Freelancer has leveled up to 3. Class corrections increased by 1. Skill points increased by 1. Skill selection increased by 1.]

So killing things increases my level faster. Interesting. Well, I guess I should call it lucky since killing seems to be the only thing I’m actually good at.

With this much food, I decided it was time to head back to the cave and divide the food between what we would eat, what the slimes would eat, and what we would be using as bait. But before I could leave the area, something caught my eye. A wounded spider- not a monstrous sized one either. Just a wounded spider about nine centimeters long. I took a good look at it, and then let a glob of my jacket made out of CMP rocket at it, placing my bran.

Spiders are interesting. They’re able to lay thousands of eggs and of course trap prey in the webbings. But more importantly, their tenacity and ability to evolve and adapt to their environments. It only takes about two generations for offspring to start mutating to their environment. There’s no reason why I wouldn’t take a spider. Some people may find them gross, but I have always found them interesting. Wait, interesting? When have I ever been interested in spiders?

I grabbed the spider and placed it on the dryad and told her to take care of it, then made sure the slimes had grabbed all of our spoils, then made my way back to the cave. If I could find a purpose for the dryad, that would be great, but for now I think I should focus on some sort of aerial scout. Then we can keep moving and not have to worry about what may come. Slimes and spider to the rear, Eliquis at point, myself and the dryad as the main force, and a scout in the air. That seems like a good formation for now, I guess.

Initially, Eliquis freaked out about the spider and retreated to the back of the cave in tears. Honestly, it took everything I had to not laugh. It took even more strength to not go over there and throw the spider at her to see her reaction. I actually had to leave the cave and cool down so I wouldn’t be tempted to tease the poor girl to an early grave.

“So this is the class system?” Eliquis asked, looking at the translucent board that appeared in front of her. “Hm… and there’s a few skills here. But I’ve only got two points, like you said. Which ones should I get?”

“Don’t know. Your class is Rogue, right? And it doesn’t look like you will be able to choose any other classes unless I level up my own abilities… Also, you can get more points as you level up your class, so it’s honestly not that big of a deal. Just make the choices on your own, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

I answered her question while looking at my own information. We had talked a bit about what I understood about this entire system that came to life since we got to this cave. I also explained what the bran did to her and how much I knew about it after going through my little experiments in the woods. I also let her know that with the dryad and the three slimes that never slept, we wouldn’t ever have to stay awake in shifts ever again. We would just need to be able to get up quickly in the case of an emergency, since they weren’t powerful enough to protect us forever.

“It doesn’t look like we need to stick around here much longer, either.” I looked over to see Eliquis’s reaction to those words. She’s really indifferent about where we go, huh? So, tomorrow will be a tough training session, the day after will be a recap, and then we’re going on our way. Pick what skills you think will be sufficient for now, then get some rest.”

I turned my attention back to my own Class System. I could’ve gone over the skills with her and chose what I thought would be best, but it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t what she was naturally talented at to begin with. Or at least that was my thought process, as I looked over my own.

Mana Blade (weak)

Creates a weak Mana Blade for 3 CMP (+6 DMG)

→ Can Strengthen Mana Blade for 1 CMP (+1 DMG) [4 times max]

Skill Slot I

Allows for up to a total of 2 skills from any Class to be used in this Class.

Job System

Unlocks the Job System

Blood Corruption I

Allows for the creation of 1 CMP for every 15 HP spent.

There’s a job system now? What the hell is a job? Do I like, automatically generate revenue? Why isn’t there an explanation of this? Ok, focus. Let’s look at what could be considered useful here. Mana Blade would be a good option to switch out this sword for, since I’m pretty sure it will become useless sooner rather than later. Skill Slot doesn’t help since I still don’t have any other classes to begin with. Job system has no type of information coming with it, and Blood Corruption, does the same thing as Mana Corruption? But it requires a lot more HP than MP. Well I’ve got a total of fifteen HP, and the skill requires fifteen, so I doubt I should be using it any time soon.

So the only one worth taking right now would be Mana Blade. But If I wait another level, another option pops up, right? Nothing came up as I got the skills last time, so I could just pick one and then wait until later to pick another one, right? Besides, as long as I have MP, building up CMP to use later on is fine enough, and every level my MP keeps increasing, so eventually I should be able to spend a full day mass producing CMP? But in the future the Corrupted Blood might become more useful if I think like that.

Ok stop thinking so far in the future. Right now the only thing that can be used to keep me alive is the Mana Blade. Let’s go with that and call it a day. I quickly ended my inner monologue and just picked [Mana Blade (weak)] and saved the other point. I don’t know when or if I would need any of those other skills, but they weren’t going to help anywhere in the near and foreseeable future, so I decided to ignore my ability to obtain one of them.

I sat quietly watching the sun set in the horizon, while paying attention to Eliquis out of the corner of my eye. It seemed like she was having an internal struggle of her own trying to pick out her initial starting skills. Eventually She picked hers and went to sleep, so I decided to take a look myself.

Eliquis

lv.1

HP: 10

MP: 9

STM: 6

CMP: 0

HPR: 1

MPR: 1

AP: 0

STR: 4

END: 2

VIT: 8

ROUGE

lv.1

INT: 1

WIS: 7

DEX: 7

ABILITIES:

Dash I

Acrobatics I

Lacerate I

Dash increases speed for a short time. Doesn’t seem to cost MP but she can only use it for five seconds and only once every thirty minutes, huh? Acrobatics actually costs MP for each use of enhanced dexterity...whatever that means. And Lacerate does exactly what I thought it would do. It basically guarantees to open a wound on an opponent. But the size of the wound is determined by the skill level.

I guess she really likes being able to take point. But I’m realizing that we won’t be able to accomplish much by ourselves and a few monsters that everyone will try to kill. We’ll need to move closer into society and figure out what to do from here.