Their breakthrough in understanding the tutorial led to a disagreement. Castle wanted to go and find the others on their island, to warn them and try and help prepare everyone for what they expected. Aster, on the other hand, very much did not.
“We survive by becoming stronger, right? We shouldn’t waste time. If the others are going to survive, they’ll survive, and if they need your help, they’re gonna weigh you down.” Aster thought of various teammates she’d had over the years.
There had been plenty of talented teammates, and plenty more normal ones. Regardless of talent, the ones who did well were always the ones who worked hardest. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. When you had a teammate who didn’t want to work hard, however? Who needed extra motivation to do what they had already signed up for? Those were the people who rode the bench at the end of the season.
The more she thought about it, the more certain Aster was that those were the people who’d get others killed in the coming weeks— the ones who’d require effort from others to survive. Effort they should be putting into themselves.
And while that was true to Aster, it wasn’t the real reason she didn’t want to go.
While they’d waited on top of the pillar for the tutorial to start, she’d seen people. People that she knew. People that, so far as she knew, had abandoned her weeks ago. She wasn’t ready to see… them… again. Not any time soon, at least.
Aster debated with Castle on their next course of action for a long time. Over their conversation, Aster collected more feathers from the raptor and debated on how to best go about gathering meat off of it. They ended up using Castle’s knife to shear off strips of muscle that they put into a makeshift wrap for Castle to carry. They’d cook them later, and hopefully they’d be decent.
Castle wanted to go and find the others on their island. She had a feeling they’d need to coordinate in order to save lives and guarantee enough levels earned by the end of the week. Aster, on the other hand, just wanted to go and start training more.
“I’ll get the levels myself if I have to,” she argued. “We can’t waste any more time on this.”
“You’re not going to outlevel a hundred people,” Castle was getting pissed at this point. “We need to focus on keeping everyone alive. If they live, they can get levels. Simple as that.”
Aster shook her head, fighting the all-too familiar flame inside her. She knew what she wanted to say, but didn’t know if she could say it. Even if we manage to keep everyone on this island alive, it won’t matter if they’re not strong enough to go all the way.
Castle was focused on the week-long trial, not the whole tutorial. But what was she supposed to say? “Most everyone here is meant to be fodder for the ones who make it to the end,” didn’t sound very kind. And what if they did survive the week without a single loss? All they were doing was farming levels off of them to save their own skins. Which was worse, in that case?
Abandoning them to die is the worse option, Aster knew. So, instead of facing their reality, Aster decided to do what she could: remove herself from the situation.
“I’m going to go deeper in,” she said, turning. “You should go help the others.”
“And leave you alone out here?” Castle scoffed.
Aster narrowed her eyes. “I’m not your responsibility.”
“No, but we’ve worked well together, and I could use your help.”
Aster’s voice wasn’t as strong as she wanted it to be when she replied, “I don’t think I’d be any help to them.”
Castle, thankfully, understood. “I’ll see you soon, then, Aster. Don’t die before that happens, okay?”
She turned toward her companion and offered her hand. “Promise.”
They shook, and went their separate ways; Castle, in search of people to save, and Aster, in search of strength.
She’d need it.
----
The closer Aster came to the center of the island, the further she’d be from addressing the major issues she was avoiding. Namely, Hazel, and the small group of friends they’d shared.
Hazel… the thought of the dark skinned woman she’d fallen in love with sent a flush over her skin. She’d resigned herself, never thinking for all the world she’d have the chance to see her again. And now that they were trapped on the same death trap of an island together, she didn’t know what to do, or how to feel.
So she climbed. She found the tallest hill she could see nearby, and started working her way towards the top of it. Maybe she’d find something to fight. Yeah, that’ll make me feel better. Perhaps after getting some energy out, she’d feel better and stop thinking about how horrible it would be to be granted a second chance at life just to lose her again.
Toward the top, she stopped to look at a curious plant she’d almost walked into. It was a succulent of some sort, camouflaged fantastically into the beige backdrop and half-buried under a rock, with a budding flower at the center of overlapping leaves with matte black, curved-upward spikes at their ends. Divots lined the scry leaves, filled with drops of a bright red syrup, and as she inspected it, she was taken aback.
[Blooddew Steptrap - Level 4]
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Aster first rose an eyebrow, then her spear. She lowered the tip toward the flower, but when it entered within a foot or so of it the leaves sprang into motion. With a snap!, they curled in and stabbed at the spear, the agave-like spikes at the end of its leaves curling in, leaving grooves in the wooden haft of her spear.
Without thinking, Aster put her weight onto the weapon, hearing a gushy pop sound as the spearhead found a home within the central flower of the plant.
*You have slain [Blooddew Steptrap - Level 4] - Experience earned. TP Earned.
That was close. She imagined what might have happened had she stepped on the damn thing. Removing her spear, she was surprised to see a cloudy gray trail of smoke coming from the center of the plant. Then she noticed the black goo on the spearhead. I’m not touching that.
The spearhead proved a useful tool for her to spread the leaves apart and see what had happened. The flower bud, it turned out, was not a flower bud at all. Instead, it had been a reservoir for the tar-like substance that had coated her spear. Considering this, Aster had a good idea how the damn thing worked.
It’s like a flytrap, but strong enough to hold a person in place while this nasty shit dissolves their foot. At least the thing was kind enough not to just kill a person. On a whim, she used Identify again and was surprised to find new information.
[Blooddew Steptrap - Deceased] - A common enough enemy hidden among desert rocks, the Blooddew Steptrap utilizes both camouflage and a mana-dense sap exuded by its leaves to ensnare its prey. Many a careless traveler has found themselves amputating a limb to free themselves from the caustic syrup it releases to dissolve its prey.
Did it provide more information now because she’d figured some of it out herself? That kind of made sense, but she still felt like that wasn’t all of it. Aster made a note to think more about this later. Right now, she had a couple hundred meters left before the summit.
Aster pushed herself, finishing climbing up the hill in only a few minutes, stopping only to kill another Steptrap she found. At the top she found herself breathing easier than she ever had in the pre-System world. Turns out that the stat points that had gone into her Endurance had made her into an olympic-level athlete. Speaking of stat points… she still had some to sort out.
She found a rock to sit down on and think. She didn’t particularly mind that she was alone in the middle of nowhere, in fact it was kind of preferable.
The landscape before her was a beautiful collage of colors, filled with every warm color imaginable. A canyon lay before her that stretched into the horizon, with outlets deviating every which way. Cacti stretched above, taller than any cactus on earth would have been capable of reaching. A massive, honeycombing structure of rock stood above the rim at the entrance of the canyon, teeming with greenery.
At the bottom of the hill below her stood a pair of those smaller dinosaurs.
[Hatchling Springclaw Raptor - Level 7]
[Hatchling Springclaw Raptor - Level 9]
They were stronger than the ones they’d fought the day before, but nowhere near as strong as the adult that had almost killed them earlier that morning. She eyed them with a smile. First step in getting stronger? Killing some dinosaurs.
Well, the first step would be to figure out where to put her free stat points. She brought up her Status menu.
Status
Name: Aster Rose
Race: [Human (G) – lvl 4]
Class: Warrior (Medium) — lvl 8
Profession: N/A
Health Points (HP): 220/220
Mana Points (MP): 160/160
Stamina: 220/220
Stats
Strength: 21
Agility: 25
Endurance: 22
Vitality: 22
Toughness: 25
Wisdom: 16
Intelligence: 16
Perception: 18
Willpower: 18
Free points: 6
TP: 3085
Six free points equaled more than the value of her starting Vitality, and she was certain she’d feel a massive bump in her capabilities after putting them to use.
The first thing she considered was whether to bolster her weaker stats. Intelligence and Wisdom were tied for the weakest at 16, but they didn’t contribute to anything she used, so far as she could tell. Willpower, likewise, didn’t seem to impact anything she did. Maybe if she got more skills soon?
In the meantime, she went to her defensive stats. Toughness was tied for her highest stat, and Vitality had taken a big jump since her first day in the System. Strength was the lowest of her offensive stats, and she could imagine it becoming much more useful now that she was solo-traveling.
Perception, as well, would benefit her solo-leveling. She did not want to leave it as one of her lower stats… but she also really liked the idea of breaking the 30-point threshold in one of her stronger stats.
In the end, she put a single point into Perception and five points into Agility, and then checked her stats again.
Stats
Strength: 21
Agility: 30
Endurance: 22
Vitality: 22
Toughness: 25
Wisdom: 16
Intelligence: 16
Perception: 19
Willpower: 18
Free points: 0
The twenty-percent boost to her Agility felt like a zap of electricity up her spine. Her pupils dilated for a second and she felt energized like never before.
Nearly shaking with anticipation, she took her spear and practiced with it for a few moments. She jumped from rock to rock, enthralled in the speed and superiority of her body, swinging her spear at imaginary foes. The spear nearly became an extension of her, and she could swear it was speaking to her. So she closed her eyes, and listened as she danced.
“Listening to her spear” might sound romanticized, but it was the best way she could articulate what she was trying to do. She could feel in her bones that there was a right way to move, but something was missing. What was different now?
She felt the grain under her palms, the weight of the head as she spun her spear, and the way she could move, reaching with the spear—
No! That was it! She didn’t need to reach with the spear, she just needed to reach. In that moment, she felt something register in her very soul and her weapon became a part of her— an extension of her will.
*Ding!*
*Skill Evolution*: [Basic Two-Handed Weapons (Inferior)] - The Warrior keeps their enemies at a distance or in the ground when using two-handed weapons. Unlocks basic proficiency with most two-handed weapons and adds a minuscule bonus to the effect of Agility and Strength when using a fitting melee weapon.
—>
[Basic Spearmanship - (Common)] — The spearmaiden keeps their enemies at a distance, until they’re ready to close in. Unlocks more specified proficiency with spears and similarly-used weapons. Emphasizes your chosen Path and offers a minor bonus to the effect of Agility and Strength when using a spear or similar weapon. Increases synergy with [Balanced Approach (Inferior)] a minor amount while wielding a spear or a similar weapon.
Oh, fuck yeah!
It was her second Common rarity skill, but her first time evolving one of her skills. Aster imagined what sorts of evolutions might come in the future. Could I get a spidey-sense from my reflex skill?
If she wanted that, she’d probably have to practice with it, so without further ado, she began to make her way down the hill.
