I was half asleep when everyone else woke up for the day. The alertness of everyone else meant I could get an extra hour of sleep before starting the day.

After my little nap, I was feeling much more refreshed. Stopping by the central area of the little camp, a park bench conveniently placed right in the middle of the camp, I was unceremoniously tossed a packet of pop-tarts for breakfast by the camps seemingly Sudo-quartermaster Samantha.

Digging scarfing down the pastries I took a moment to see what everyone else was up too. I found Dave hanging clothes on a makeshift clothesline.

“Hey Dave, where are Clair and Roger?” I asked.

He responded, “They went hunting.”

I nodded back and wandered off.

Once again finding myself with nothing to do I started to think about what would be a good project for the day. First I considered messing around more with magic, specifically I wanted to test if I could get affinities like ‘nature’ or ‘ice’ or if they were bound to parent affinities like earth and water. Eventually, though I decided to test something different.

While the ability seeking had been really helpful lately for finding enemies, I had never really used it as intended.

I figured it would probably be a good idea to remedy that, first I decided to try something that I originally wanted to do when I first got to the camp. Making my way over to the makeshift ice-chest they had set up I finally got to take a look at the ‘cold rock’ they had found.

Externally it looked just like a regular rock but when I brought my hand near it was ice cold. Activating seeking I could see the rock still but now it glowed a bright blue, closing up the ice-chest I could still see the glow through the box but it was way less defined.

Looking around I could see a ton of different glowing spots. Heading towards the nearest one I discovered that it was a bright red flower, reaching my hand towards it I stopped before I touched it. While outwardly it didn’t seem dangerous, no heat, nothing threatening, a little tickle in the back of my brain told me I would regret touching the plant carelessly. Before I could ponder further I was startled by a voice behind me.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you…” said Clair who was now standing behind me.

Turning around I was met by a mischievous smile, “You guys are back from hunting?” I asked her.

“Yep we got a nice boar looking thing” she responded.

“What would happen if I touch that red flower?” I asked.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Well according to the system it will explode into a mist of slightly poisonous gas that attaches itself to your skin when you touch it. You would be red head to toe for at least a week.” she laughed out.

I looked at her slightly confused, “According to the system?” I voiced my confusion.

She looked at me in a little bit of disbelief, “you’re able to figure out magic, yet you don’t try the simplest things????” she went on to explain that you could literally ask the system about stuff in your field of view and it would give you information about it.

Basically facepalming I started to test out this system feature.

First, I asked the system about the flower I was about to pick.

Type: Spore Flower

Danger: Medium

Description: A red flower that reacts unkindly towards contact. If touched the flower will shower the toucher in a cloud of red poisonous sticky mist.

Wanting to further test the system I tried something experimental.

looking at Clair I asked the system about her.

Name: Clair Unkown

Direct Danger: Upper-Low

Indirect Danger: Upper-Medium

Other Information: Unkown

Looking at Clair again I asked her, “Whats with the direct and indirect danger thing?”

She replied, “Our best guess is that direct danger is the personally power of an individual, while indirect is the power of the people that might help them, or other things that would assist them. So if the person has a fortress that would contribute to indirect danger because it would be harder to reach them inside it.”

I looked into her eyes and asked her a second question, “what does it say about my danger?”

She stared back into my eyes and said, “indirect is Upper-Low… and direct is High.”

“I wonder what contributes to that.” I replied back, “well anyway, I’m testing out another one of my abilities. Want to come with me?” I asked her.

“Sure” she said.

Nodding I started to look for something less dangerous to experiment with. Looking around I found another blue glowing spot nearby and we started to make our way to it.

It turned out to be a little patch of an off purple-colored grass. Learning from last time the first thing I did was ask the system about the grass.

Type: Mana-Grass

Danger: low

Description: Mana-Grass grows in places with high concentrations of life-force, the grass can be eaten for a small amount of energy that resembles ambient life-force, and can be used as it. it also has some alchemical uses.

Knowing it was safe I grabbed a small tuft of the grass from the ground. Handing some to Clair who had her hand out I started further inspecting a strand of it. Taking a sniff of the grass it smelled sickly sweet, figuring its description said it was edible I stuck as strand into my mouth much to Clair's amusement.

Mentally watching the grass making its way down my throat I could see an energy leaching off into my skin. I attempted to direct the energy and I was able to bring it down to my hand. Closing off my hand in-port I let the energy sit in my hand. Opening my eyes I snapped my fingers. As I expected a small ball of fire was created next to my hand. It seemed different somehow but it functioned just the same.

Dispelling the fireball I started to gather up as much of the grass as I could leaving just a little bit in case I needed more in the future and I couldn’t find any.

Turning to Clair I said, “its basically infinite ambient Life-force as long as I have enough grass on me…”

I was about to continue speaking when I was interrupted by a blue box popup.

CONGRATULATIONS SURVIVORS!

With new Beasts roaming the land you probably need equipment and stats to deal with them yes? To facilitate this many merchants have decided to sell their products on your planet! As this message is sent new kiosks are being distributed across the world, with these you can buy Stat upgrades and equipment! ask your system for the nearest kiosk location!

Looking over at Clair we both had the same thought process, she grabbed my arm and we started running back to camp.