After laughing for a good 5 minutes and waiting another half hour for his mana to regenerate, which was honestly not long thanks to his higher-than-normal regeneration stat, he finally got up and continued building the arch but then he remembered that he still had 9 stat points to spend.
“So, we need to talk about how we’re going to distribute our stats”
“That we do. I was thinking along the lines of you focusing on intelligence and regeneration, you know, full on glass canon build. Meanwhile I’ll switch to something like a paladin build, focusing on constitution and strength with a bit of intelligence thrown in so that I can still heal you when you get in trouble.” Mark said
“It seems like Mark has been thinking about this particular issue for some time now seeing as how he had an immediate answer to my question.” Noah thought, then something occurred to him “You know, speaking of stats, how many stat points did you get for leveling up?”
“Six, you?”
“Nine.”
“That’s a bit underwhelming seeing as how you got an EPIC rated class don’t you think”
“It kind of is but the skills and talents I received more than make up for it. Besides, it’ll snowball in the future anyway so I’m not worried”
“That’s true Mr. Avatar, master of all four elements. All you need to do is not vanish for a hundred years and I’d be your biggest fan” Mark chuckled at the thought
“Master? Not even close, at least not yet.” Noah said with a hint of wonder in his eyes “I’ll definitely get there eventually though, mark my words.”
“Yeah yeah, now let’s get this boar hung and drained of blood. I’ll distribute my stat points to strength and constitution so that we’ll have an easier time of it.” Mark said while tapping on the air in front of him
“And you’re one hundred percent sure that you’ll be fine with being our frontline for the foreseeable future? You’re going to be up close and personal with beasts and shit you know.”
“Already done. And don’t worry about me, me healing myself is actually more cost efficient than me healing you so it’s the logical choice”
With logic being brought into the conversation Noah didn’t hesitate anymore and decided to put all his stat points into intelligence because although regeneration was also important, for now, it was enough, and he needed to have more mana so that he could cast more spells. “More spells equals more damage” he thought. And damage is what they were gonna need from him.
With all that done, Noah finished the arch and this time, with 18 points of mana to spare. After that, they proceeded to tie the rope they got from the manager’s office to the feet of the boar and hung it from the arch. It took a good hour of their time but they finally managed to do it and the carcass finally started draining blood into the ground.
They left it hanging there for a few hours until it was well into the afternoon and when they went to check it out, there was only a trickle left where there used to be a constant flow of blood. They were also pleased to find that no animals showed up and stole their hard-earned prey. “See, I told you, Talal definitely has a way to mark his territory otherwise there’d probably be dozens of animals stealing bites out of the carcass right now.”
“Yeah yeah, you were right yet again. Now, lets gather some fire wood and make a fire spit so that we can finally roast this bad boy and eat, I’m starving.” Mark said before a very loud rumbling sound came from his stomach.
With that, they got to work. They first retrieved a fire axe from the apartment building which Mark used to chop a tree down, unfortunately, this took quite a while which led to Noah coming up with an idea and immediately activated [Air Manipulation] and [Mana Sense]. He first formed an air bullet and stretched it so that it would be as thin as possible then he summoned another air bullet and did the same thing only this time stacked it in such a way that it added more depth to the burgeoning wind blade, he did this one more time until he got the notification.
You have acquired the spell [Air Blade]
He also got a few notifications saying that he leveled up [Air Manipulation] twice and [Mana Sense] once. “Might as well acquire that earth bullet spell too, it might be more powerful than air bullet after all with the added weight and all” he thought as he went on to tinker with the earth and successfully making an [Earth Bullet] and getting a level in [Earth Manipulation] in the process. All this for the price of fifteen mana, five more than [Air Bullet].
He tried the new spells out on a tree and found that [Earth Bullet] dug into the wood instead of bursting on impact like [Air Bullet] which made it more suitable for actual kill shots while the latter was better at causing concussions or knocking things back like it did with the boar.
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Noah then tried out his newest and most mana-hungry spell yet on the same tree he shot with earth bullet and actually made it half way into the tree before dissipating.
Mark looked on in disbelief and said “Well, that’ll definitely make hunting easier.”
“Yeah, but it costs thirty mana, my total cap right now is at fifty-eight, still two shy of 2 shots so we definitely have to make it count.”
“Leave it to me! I’ll make sure you get your shot!” Mark said assuredly
And so, with firewood collected and rocks formed into an oblong large enough to cover the whole length of the boar, the fire spit was finally done. Now, all they need to do was remove the innards and put a tough enough stick through it so they could much more easily rotate it and cook all sides evenly luckily for them, [Earth Manipulation] solved most of their problems which earned Noah another level.
After another few hours of slow cooking and constant rotating, it was finally ready. With eager expressions on their faces they finally sliced a couple juicy pieces off and tasted it. Their eyes widened.
“Holy shit we didn’t even put on any condiments, why is it so tasty?” Noah said while shoveling heaps of meat into his mouth.
“It’s because of the mana.” Talal suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started eating “That and you guys are hungry, hunger plus mana makes for a very delicious meal”
Noah and Mark almost choked on their food as they were surprised by Talal’s sudden arrival. Talal noticed this and said apologetically “Sorry about that guys. I’m just used to moving stealthily through human cities.”
“It’s okay, it’s just… gonna take a while to get used to“ Noah said
As they sat there and ate, they talked about anything and everything including how the system worked for mythic beasts like Talal and humans like Noah, it turned out that when Talal said he received “massive” increases to his stats, it was actually limited to five points per level, though, they did start with stats well into the hundreds. It was truly a massive difference in starting points but eventually, Noah was confident that humans could catch up.
Talal had a thoughtful look on his face as he stared at the two humans eating meat in front of him. “Perhaps, with the system now upon us, humans can reach a point where they can fight alongside us against these so-called invaders.” But then he saw one of the said humans choke on the water he summoned himself “Okay, maybe they have a ways to go before they reach that point.” Talal couldn’t help but smile at Noah’s antics.
And so, a couple more mouthfuls of meat and Talal gulping down what was left of the boar, later, they went back toward the apartment and turned in for the night with bellies full of meat and minds full of hope that maybe, just maybe, it would all work out.
Like this, five days passed as Noah and Mark got into a rhythm of eat, sleep and hunt. With Noah’s new spell [Air Blade], it was all but guaranteed that they wouldn’t go hungry as air blade pretty much just straight up decapitated any would-be foes while Mark kept them at bay. This earned them three levels each and the much-needed experience required for them to get the hang of survival.
They still kept to the previously agreed stat point distribution where Noah put everything he got into intelligence while Mark put half in strength and half in constitution. This made them quite the combination as Mark the self-healing paladin was the perfect tank and Noah the glass canon lived up to his name as a canon and blew away all foes no matter the size as he now had a whopping one hundred and twelve mana. Enough for three whole shots of [Air Blade] which all but ensured the death of any enemy.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end.
“I’ll hold it off while you run! Get to Talal and use that favor we have saved!” Mark said as he was squaring off against a previously analyzed foe
Orc Scout – lvl 8
Noah hesitated and said “Are you sure? I still think we can kill this guy eventually.”
“Yes I’m sure! I think that too but what I’m worried about is it’s a scout, if it runs, we won’t be able to stop it!” Mark said as he pulled his axe out of the arm of his foe
“Okay!” Noah said and immediately activated his new spell [Enhance] which enhanced his whole body with mana and effectively raised his physical attributes by six, although it didn’t show on his status screen.
He ran as fast as he could, mildly worried that Mark wouldn’t be able to hold on long enough but, he chose to trust him, trust in his healing that has saved them more times than they could count over the past five days.
As he ran through the forest, Noah pushed his new spell to the limit, forcefully putting in more mana than was necessary and surprisingly, a new notification popped up.
Forceful Evolution Detected… Analyzing… Spell [Enhance] has been modified to be able to regulate mana input… Congratulations!
“Well, this changes everything.” He thought as he ran so fast that it was definitely more than double his normal running speed but, the one downside to this newly evolved spell was the massive drain on his mana stores, thankfully he could already see the sole building in the valley, standing proudly above the trees.
When he got to the building and went up the stairs, he knocked on the door to the tenth floor and shouted “TALAL! WE NEED TO CASH IN THAT FAVOR RIGHT NOW! MARK IS IN DANGER AND FIGHTING AN ORC ALONE!” he heard rustling and out came Talal in his usual colorful robe.
“Okay Okay, stop shouting, I heard you. Are you sure that this is what you want to use your favor on?”
“Yes! It’s an Orc scout, there might be more where it came from so we can’t let it report back!”
Then Noah’s eyes widened in awe as Talal transformed back into a Roc albeit, a smaller version of his previous form “Come, ride on my back, it’ll be faster that way.”
“Don’t we need to go outside first?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, I did some renovating and made a window big enough for this current form to fit through. Now, get on.”
Noah obediently got on Talal’s back and held on to a few feathers as they zoomed out of the building at breakneck speeds.