I woke up with both my Vitae and Arcana, not knowing how much time had passed or at least I didn’t know until I checked the quest that marked the time remaining 2 months, 28 days, 20 hours and 30 minutes remaining. More than a day has passed and being aware of the time made my hunger return with a vengeance, so I directed my attention to my inventory and pulled a coconut, grabbing the knife I previously pilfered that’s when it hit illuminated by the dull light of a another grey day I noticed that it was covered in dried blood, the memories of the last encounter came flooding back causing me to physically flinch and almost drop the knife. Yet I managed to take a couple of deep breaths organizing my thoughts. I considered that the combination of the humanoid body with the close quarters finally managed to make me come to terms with the reality of the situation. I questioned myself on what to do next until my stomach made a noise reminding of my base needs and passing the dagger through my trunks as way to clean it I hack at the recently extracted coconut, which look almost identical to the ones I was used to with white meat and whitish liquid, I went to take a gulp that was almost immediately spitted, it tasted sour like orange juice gone bad. Then it hit me that this place isn’t earth. The thing in my hand looked like a coconut but maybe it wasn’t. Which prompted me to use identify obtaining the following information.
Coco Fruit (Basic): Renown as a survivors fruit the Coco fruit can be used to keep oneself hydrated and well fed, despite its less than delectable taste.
“Me carga la chingada” the word escaped my lips with a weird mix of relief and frustration, leaving aside that the name was in Spanish, the experience was awful, even if I didn’t consider myself a foodie I did enjoy food as much as the next person, resigned I tried again and managed to drained it in one gulp, then came the pulp which honestly tasted like cardboard, after the ordeal I no longer felt hungry despite the bad taste in my mouth. With that out of the way I contemplated when and took a dip in the water to wash off the blood that was also stuck to my trunks and cape, and relieve myself when I remembered the book. I took it out of the pouch and to my surprise there were a couple of new pages, the first one talked about leveling up and allocating free points which I have already done, with the only tip being that one should try to focus on 1 or 2 attributes while keeping the rest balanced. I took the advice considering that I didn’t spend the last free points. The next page however put me in a contemplative page.
By this point you ought to fight your first monster, this will happen outside and worse, while the system provides many ways to ascend, new integrations tend to be violent, you won’t be able to save everyone and even if you do, they might betray you in the never ending quest for power.
This head start can be both a blessing and a curse, so use your time wisely and keep growing strong, strong enough so that you can protect and guide those around, and if the worst comes to pass, to have the power to be able to rise above it.
The sobering lines caused the overthinking boat to sail in full force, my thoughts focused mainly on my family, what would the old Aunt Rosa do against a Paleling, what about little Miguel, and Mom. I haven't seen her since she was set to arrive yesterday, or was it today? Even if she distanced herself after the last time we spoke she did bought me the ticket to her hometown and made the effort to reconnect, then there were the others Coach Ernie, and the rest of the Neanderthals at the gym even Adam the asshole who injured my recently recovered shoulder, I cared about them, then my classmates who were no better than Adam but in contrast whoever, I didn’t care about them but that didn’t meant that they deserved to die, there was also my ex I thought a bit her briefly but that particular wound was still fresh, deciding not to dwell on it I decided to begin with my day.
During the hike to the beach I couldn’t see the body or signs of the Palelings nor the Aragostas that I slayed yesterday, questioning if there was another creature that managed to scavenge their remains, or this was like a video game and the enemy naturally disappeared, without a clear answer I approached carefully to the beach wary of any ambush and took a quick and salty bath scrubbing the dried blood of me I got off and began the grind again, as I did I went to the first palm I saw and launched a well-placed Arcane shot that dropped all 4 Coco fruits to the ground, and as expected an Aragosta appeared a couple of Arcane shots was all it took for me to recover the unappetizing fruit, locating the next palm I wondered if this was one of the palms that I raided yesterday so I took out my looted knife and make a note to check tomorrow, in the meantime it was time to level.
6 hours passed when I finally returned to the cabin, during that time I managed to hit level 5, and I confirmed that after that monster and Coco fruits respawned every couple of hours, I counted a total of 28 different Palm trees, with the most disheartening fact that the creatures that when I hit my last level the creatures only gave 5 experience each. On the other hand it only took 1 arcane shot to take them so I guess it was good to have such a tangible way to measure your progress. Another important fact to highlight was a second attempted ambush by the Palelings who were blasted with arcane shots. I forced myself to pass nearby to acknowledge my actions but finally in the safety of the cabin I did check my status screen, and after spending all my points it looked like this.
Name: Roberto B. (System enhanced Human)
Level: 5
Class: Mage
Vitae: 120/100
Arcana 25/25 (+2 Wood Catalyst)
Strength 10
Dexterity 8
Endurance 9
Intelligence 12
Evocation 20 (Regeneration +20% percent Cloak of minor Arcana regeneration)
Perception 6
Affinities: (None)
Abilities: Inspect (Tier 11 G), Regenerative Meditation (Tier 11 A), Arcane shot (Tier 11 A).
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Seeing that there were no new pages on the book I did the only thing that I could, which was meditating until I fell asleep, when I woke up this time it was still dark so with nothing much to do I try working out, more out of habit and need wanting to do a bit of solo drills I remember the wooden floor and the possibility of a splinter in the back and decided to wait until first light and so I did, in the meantime I had a horrible breakfast, hummed, monologue about the advantages of being “pasador” instead of guard puller, and even sang missing for the first time my phone hours passed and the thing that appeared to work the most was music so I hummed and made an awful interpretation of a mix of 80s hard rock with a sprinkle of nu metal here and there, when the darkness finally receded it left yet another grey day.
A faster hike ensued which left me to start by going to beach, splashing a bit and then looking for a palm to assist me with the drills, I went to shoot more Coco fruits to draw the Aragosta and I did except this damn thing was level 4, in the span of seconds I managed to launch 2 shots at the thing but it managed to close the distance, causing me to roll out of the way and launch the third and final shot. “Mierda, that was close” I said openly, I didn’t expect it to be this fast with only two more levels, the worry to having to kill hundreds for a single level evaporated, replace with the thought of being out leveled, in order to distract myself from those thoughts I concentrated on the routine of collecting the fruit, but when I tried it wasn’t absorbed by the pouch taking like the rest of the items, after opening the inventory I was able to see why. Beside the book there were exactly 60 of the insipid ass fruits. the drills forgotten I decided to recalibrate my strategy to not be wasteful on the second palm shooting the sand surrounding the palm and it worked, the clearly pissed Aragosta erupting from the sand was also level 4 but since I took a greater distance the 3 arcane shots hit before the creature was close and so the third day gave another level before it got dark I grew curious about the Palelings who likely would be expecting my return, but to my surprise there wasn’t a trace of the humanoid monsters, maybe they will only show up during the night, so with nothing else to do I returned to the beach to meditate and rest for a couple of hours, when it grew dark I returned and sure enough the creatures where there this time 4 of them all level 2. I accounted for the level not the fourth creature yet I didn’t waste time and began shooting arcane the nervousness that I experienced in the previous attack changed to cold calculated shots with deadly results for the pale creatures receiving a total of 40 experience but not new level, I considered for a moment sticking by to keep grinding but the low visibility would definitively benefit the creatures, so I discard a couple of Coco fruits and loot all 4 daggers before getting back to the cabin, once there without enough light to check the book I decided to unload some of the Coco fruits in a corner and try to pile them which was a nice distraction due to their uneven spherical shape causing me to start over in more than one occasion, after I was done with my pyramid of blandness however boredom started to take root. My mind was quite used to being bombarded with information and stimulus longed for something to do. Finally resigned, I decided to lay flat on the wooden floor for what felt like the hundredth time and began to meditate again, the sleep taking me once more after a while.
The fourth day greeted me with the same grey sky that I was starting to get used I noticed that the Coco fruits where still piled up so I was the everyday reset didn’t apply inside the cabin, which meant that I could stockpile food and just stay hidden until the end, however that ideas was long discarded, so I resume my routine starting with checking the book which show nothing new, then I move with the workout which I started to formalize, the goal was to make to do a certain number of reps of each exercise and check the limits of this new body, I started with the usual during the recovery of my shoulder injury, consisting on 80 crunches, 80 squats and with sai shoulder recovered I included 80 pushups. After I was done I jog carefully not to roll over downhill until I reached the beach, I then took a quick dip this time without the Cloak, and after that I began grinding for levels. The Aragostas didn′t Increased in level but after a couple of quick encounters I decided to space a bit more my meditations, a couple of aragostas in I got a new level decreasing the difficulty of the fights with at this point went back to 1 arcane shot being enough to defeat oversized lobster so I slayed ten of the monsters before taking my first break, that was a bit exciting the feeling of getting stronger but the fighting itself was repetitive. Yet I endured and finished my routine and by the time I defeating the 4 Palelings waiting me up hill I reach level 8 and with the level came a surprise in the form of a notification.
+5 experience congratulation you have reached level 8.
You have acquired a new ability: Arcane blade (Tier 11 A): Generate a blade of arcane nature, cost 6 arcana to activate, 3 arcana per minute upkeep without a catalyst, 4 arcana to activate 2 arcana per minute upkeep with a catalyst.
Checking my stats confirmed the change
Name: Roberto B. (System enhanced Human)
Level: 8
Class: Mage
Vitae: 140/140
Arcana 31/31 (+2 Wood Catalyst)
Strength 11
Dexterity 11
Endurance 12
Intelligence 15
Evocation 26 (Regeneration +20% percent Cloak of minor Arcana regeneration)
Perception 6
Affinities: (None)
Abilities: Inspect (Tier 11 G), Regenerative Meditation (Tier 11 A), Arcane shot (Tier 11 A), Arcane blade (Tier 11 A)
“Hell yeah” I said and right there and then I activated the skill directly from my hand and it was enveloped by a blue arcane glow similar to that of the arcane shot but instead but with the form of a blade extended around 70 centimeters expanding the glow I tested swinging causing a woosh to sound, I then stabbed at the ground and it sank almost without resistance, It looked cool as hell and while it didn’t fit my build it was nice to have an option of close combat, staring at the blade make me have another idea so I canceled the spell, finishing the last few meters I ignored the bits of palelings scattered on the ground and entered the cabin took out the book and confirmed with a smile as I activated the recently acquired blade that the glow was enough to see the new page that read:
Regarding Abilities II: As your power grow you may manifest new abilities, this are tied to your progress and actions and class, that means that even if 2 warriors share the same class but use different weapons they most likely develop different abilities, and even if they were to use the same weapon that wouldn’t guarantee the access to the same skills. Also keep in mind that using your abilities may cause them to progress or evolve into a more refined version of the ability.
That paragraph gave a lot to think on and so I went to deactivate the skill, ate another mildly tolerable Coco fruit and went on to meditate finishing I thought of practicing the arcane blade, but the memory of the written warning bloom in my mind causing me to reconsider, so with nothing more to do I meditated and went to sleep.
The next day arrived with both my bars full and I stretched taking a moment to notice that while I usually remembered my dreams, since arriving at this place I didn’t dream, maybe due to the activity or perhaps the lack of stimulus. Without a clear answer I went to have a miserable breakfast and began my routine not feeling tired. I increased the quantity to 120 of each, and prepared to continue with my jog but the moment I opened the door my face was met with light drizzle. The light rains accompanied by darker shade of grey in the clouds marked the only physical change that I could notice the woods were at the back as usual, the same beach with maybe the waves growing a bit rougher but maybe that was my imagination, I hanged around a bit around the entrance but nothing else seem out of place, shrugging I continue with the routine being extra careful not to slip in the grass, and soon enough I find myself on the beach I was about to enter the salty water yet again but looking at the rain make me thing better of it so I just took of my cloak and “scrub” my body, perhaps it was due to my enhance physique but I didn’t smell as bad as it should and what I could look of my skin looked healthy even with the lack of basic hygiene products, after the “bath” was done the next step of my routine awaited I aim the wood catalyst but before I even took the first shot to draw the monster, a level 6 Aragosta sprang from the ground and charge however the fight was uneventful 3 arcane shots and the creature was put down. With that out of the way I continued with the usual drills on the palm finishing around 20 minutes later I stood up and grabbed the staff when an idea came to me, channeling arcane blade the staff was turned into a glaive giving a few testing swings the idea cemented, but first I needed to finish the next part of my routine, the grind lasted for hours but I kept an eye open to the sky and as soon as the first sign of dusk appeared I stopped and prepared with a quick round of meditation topping of my arcana, without any new levels I began the increasingly shorter way back towards the cabin and the Palelings.
