Chuck rose with the first light of the morning. He ate a cold meal of what he assumed were trail rations. He packed up his gear and was about to go before he stopped, indecision crossing his mind. This seemed like a safe place to stay but his food would run out sooner or later.
'Perhaps a bit more practice before he entered the unknown forest,' he thought.
He was about to start casting some more ice arrows at the wall. Then he realized he had not set any skill to train after ice arrow finished the day before. He didn't know if the skills continued training while he was asleep, but if they did he had lost out on over ten hours of training time.
He quickly pulled out the multitasking book and started training that. It looked like it would take almost six hours to train the skill to level one. He sighed. If he had not forgotten last night it would be done already. He resolved to do a better job of remembering to train skills. With that thought came another. Could he queue skills? Worth a try.
He tried reading the minor heal book. The only option he got was to train the skill. He chose no, deciding to try something else. He closed his eyes and meditated to bring up his skill menu. It really wasn't meditation, the system only required him to think clearly on what he wanted for the menu to appear in his mind.
He decided to use ice arrow for this test. Clicking on the name of the skill in his mind.
Would you like to pause your current skill to train this one, or would you like to queue it for training next? Pause/Queue
Chuck selected queue and a small one appeared next to the skill. He wondered how many skills he could queue up at once. Chuck tried adding bladed weapons and a two appeared next to it. Next, he added light armor and got a small three next to that. This was as far as his testing could go though. It wouldn't let him double queue any of the skills. Chuck canceled those queued skills since he wanted to train minor heal next. Once he got all his skills to level one then he would queue them up again.
With that out of the way, he started practicing again. Chuck decided to wait here until he finished training heal. That would make it around supper time before they were done. For some reason, Chuck thought the days were twenty-four hours long. More random memories that he couldn't place. He thought about that and what the book said.
The book said he was just born into this world, which made no sense. He obviously wasn't a toddler or even a child. With no mirror, he couldn't be sure of his age, other than the fact that his status page said he was sixteen. Had he been stolen from someplace and dumped here? That might explain the memory loss. He wasn't sure he trusted whoever or whatever left that book for him. He was sure he also didn't want to play bait if what the writer said was true. Chuck could only hope his memories returned and he could find a way home. There must be someone out there that was looking for him.
These thoughts and others went through his head as he cast ice arrow against the boulder. He noticed that the distracting thoughts were slowing down his casting time. The previous day he could form the spell matrix in roughly five seconds to cast it. Now it was taking almost seven. He got frustrated and yelled, "ICE ARROW!"
The words seemed to help the form stabilize in his mind and the spell was cast. He tried it again, this time saying the word as soon as he started, "Ice Arrow."
He was right, vocalizing the spell helped solidify the matrix quite a bit faster. This time he could cast it in a little over two seconds. He was surprised by the results, but happy none the less. He decided to stop casting for now. He didn't want a repeat of yesterday where he got so tired he passed out. That seemed to happen after about five casts of the spell. He would try again in an hour to see what would happen.
He switched to practicing with the sword. Just like with the magic, his mind didn't seem to bring any memories or random information percolating into his mind. Did this mean he had never used magic or swords before? Perhaps he was some pampered noble that sat in their castle all the time. Or maybe he was some dirt poor peasant that just couldn't find or afford training. Each one seemed just as likely to him so he dropped that line of thought as pointless.
He swung the sword around, careful to keep the razor-sharp edge away from anything soft and fleshy. He tested the feel and weight of the weapon. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. The length of the blade extended from his elbow to the tip of his fingers. He vaguely recalled measuring that at one point in his life and it was around forty-six centimeters.
Just another dislocated memory. It had no context. He sighed in frustration, losing track of the dual bladed swords tip. This proved to be just long enough for it to slice through his pants. He let go of the sword as he jumped back. The blade clattered to the ground, forgotten while Chuck assessed the damage. "Stupid idiot," he mumbled to himself.
There was a long slash where the blade passed through the pants with ease. The flap of material just hanging there now. He inspected the hole. A thin red line about three centimeters long marred the side of his calf. Only a small bead of blood trickled from the cut. He had gotten extremely lucky. He didn't have anything to repair the pants with, so he looped the strip around and tied it off to the bottom hem to keep it from dragging or getting caught on anything.
He didn't have anything to cover the cut but it seemed to be fine so he left it. He decided to put the blade away for now before he injured himself further.
The day went by at a crawl, every hour or so Chuck would cast two or three ice arrows. Once he did four and didn't feel any strain. He decided that would be his limit until he had more time to practice with the spell. His multitasking had finally finished level one, so now he was training the minor heal. He then started training the second level of ice arrow. It looked like with the reduced efficiency it would take a little over an hour to train the one hundred skill points. He decided to queue up light armor, and then bladed weapons as both only had a one hundred point requirement for level two. Each of those should take an hour and a half each. That meant all three would finish even before minor heal did.
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He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky, he expected the sun to be about its peak. That didn't look to be the case though. It looked like the sun was still climbing in the sky, and would do so for at least a few more hours. The only thing he had to track time was the skills. If his memory was correct it should be about one in the afternoon. The position of the sun said more like nine or ten in the morning. So now he couldn't even trust his spotty memories.
He closed his eyes again to add his last skill to the queue. Level two of multitasking had a shocking skill point cost of four thousand points. That was over twenty-three hours at full speed, let alone the six it would spend at half speed. So approximately thirty hours total. It was still worth training the skill. Level two alone doubled his training speed. He would stop there, for now. It didn't pay to train it past that point until he had more than four skills he could train... well it was more like three skills really.
Chuck decided to have a quick lunch and head out. He felt safe enough for the skill to finish in five hours. He slipped on his pack and the sword he cleaned off and headed towards the rising sun. He was sick of standing around.
Same as the day before, as he got closer to the forest the sounds started to pick up. He approached the edge and took a deep breath, stepping into the thick tree cover.
Slowly Chuck made his way between the trees and ground cover. It wasn't quite thick enough to prevent him from moving forward but it was close. If he had to he would chop plants out of his way with the sword. He pushed on.
He stopped to catch his breath and check the time. Looks like he had been walking for over an hour. Ice arrow level two was complete so he re-added it to the back of the queue. Level three had a four hundred point requirement. That meant around five hours to complete. The level three bonus didn't seem all that great. A bonus to the projectile speed, similar to level two as well as a high chance of piercing light armor, and a five-meter longer range.
What did they expect him to fight, people? Why would he want to harm someone else? He continued his trek through the forest. He walked for another forty minutes before he saw a clearing. He could see something moving around in the clearing so he decided to cautiously and quietly approach the edge of the forest. He almost jumped out of his shoes when he heard a chime in his head.
You have unlocked the skill sneaking. Would you like to train this skill? Y/N
He stopped to try and think. What would happen if he skipped, would this mean he could never get the skill again? What would happen with minor heal? The book was gone, would it just pause like the other skills?
He didn't think minor heal was going to do him all that much good so he decided to risk it and go for sneak. He watched the new skill slot into the main spot and start training. There was no description of the skill, only an SP value 30 listed. He wondered about that. He also saw that minor heal was still in the list and showed to be about a third completed. That was good to know.
Chuck waited quietly about twenty meters back from the clearing while the skill finished.
Name: Sneaking
Rarity: Common
Level: 1-5
Status: Passive
Stat: Dexterity
SP to next level: 100
Description: Dried twigs everywhere! 5% chance to avoid detection
It wasn't really clear what the five percent worked against or towards. Perhaps it just made him harder to spot. He made sure to place minor heal back in the main training slot and re-queued all of his skills again. Putting the second level of sneak before the third level of ice arrow. It sort of made sense that basic skills could just be learned. Otherwise, people would be useless, unless they could acquire skill books. Somehow Chuck Doubted items like that were free.
The sneak skill did give him some knowledge of how to move to avoid being heard or seen. He slowly made his way to the edge of the clearing. Whatever was moving around had stopped. He could hear sounds still though, so it was safe to say it was still there. He positioned himself behind a fallen log and looked out into the clearing.
There appeared to be something white and fluffy about twenty meters away. It looked like a large rabbit, about the size of a medium dog. It was facing away from him and eating something on the ground. Chuck thought this would be a good test of his spell, and also possible dinner. The trail rations left a lot to be desired.
He readied the spell in his mind and aimed his hand. His accuracy had improved remarkably with his practice. After five seconds the spell streaked forth from his hand, leaving a cold vapor trail in the humid air.
He watched excitedly at the spell closed in on his target, only to see it crash to the ground just shy of the animal. He realized his mistake right away. His practice sessions had only been at short range, he forgot to factor in drop due to gravity.
The creature let out an angry squeak while jumping in the air, and doing a one-eighty. It was a rabbit! Its face was also covered in red, and Chuck got a good view of what it was eating, and it wasn't berries. The beast looked directly at him as it landed.
"Oh shit!" Chuck quickly tried to ready a second ice arrow as the giant rabbit screamed in anger and charged at him.
The rabbit was fast, eating up the distance in seconds. Chuck was forced to call out the spell name, "Ice Arrow!" as the beast leaped at him, jaws wide. The spell only clipped the animal. Chuck used his arm to block by instinct and the rabbit clamped down, its sharp teeth tearing through flesh. Chuck screamed and tried to dislodge the beast from his arm, but it was clamped on good. The impact sent Chuck onto his back and the beast tore at his armor with front and back claws while it shook its head trying to rip a chunk of his arm free.
Chuck fumbled wildly for his sword but it was on the opposite side of his good arm. The pain wasn't letting him think straight to cast another spell either. He took to punching the beast in the face until it sprang off of him. He quickly scrabbled to pull his sword with his off-hand as the creature pounced at him again. Chuck squealed and closed his eyes as he whipped the sword in an arc in front of himself.
The sword caught something and was wrenched from his hand as he was splashed with warm wetness. After a few seconds, he realized he was still alive. He opened his eyes and looked at the scene around him. His sword was lodged into a tree at just the right height to sever the head from the killer rabbit. He groaned and sat up. The wound on his arm was bleeding profusely.
Shakily he managed to tear the now shredded sleeve and tie it around the wound, muffling a scream as he cinched it down. The bandage soaked through in seconds but it wasn't pouring out or dripping anymore. He tried to stand but felt light-headed. Falling to his knees and losing his lunch. Eventually, he managed to stand on weak legs and pull the sword from the tree. He couldn't get it back into the scabbard with his other arm being wounded so he just held on to it.
He tried to walk forward, stumbling into a tree. The sword slipped from his good hand as he collapsed to the ground.