The world around Alan fell away, leaving him once more floating through the bleakness of the void.
Yet this time, he didn't find the silence to be oppressive. Strangely enough, it was welcoming. His mind was still, and calm, yet he still had enough awareness remaining to him that he understood that although things were mostly motionless in wherever this was that he'd found himself, in the physical world, his hands were fluidly executing precise cuts. Acting as if on autopilot, Alan's body was hard at work, slowly etching out the main details of his planned carving.
To all appearances, seemingly without any conscious input on his part.
The more he tried to focus on the image of his hands dutifully performing their task, the harder Alan felt his conscious mind trying to reassert dominance. He began to be forcefully pulled in and out of his meditative trance, which brought about a sudden torrent of conflicting thoughts.
If he was in here, floating in the depths of his mind, watching his own efforts from the inside out, than who the fuck was controlling his hands? Was it the Skill doing all the work, or was it something else entirely?
It was a jarring experience. For a moment, he became nervous. Perhaps, he realized, activating these particular Skills at once had not been the best plan of action. The portion of his brain that controlled fine motor skills and muscle memory was hard at work, carving away long strips of wood under the guidance of [Whittling].
On the other hand, the area of his brain that governed conscious thought, fears, and the ability to ration was being supressed by [Meditation]. The disconnect between body and mind left Alan in a disorientating mental haze. He was finding it to be increasingly difficult to determine who and what he actually was.
Without his ego getting in the way, the name Alan Robbins was sounding more and more like pointless white noise. It was basically an identification stamp and nothing more. Surely his entire existence wasn't so easily defined as a few spoken syllables. Alan Robbins was the name given to him by his parents, but who was he before he had a name? What would he be if that name was suddenly stripped away?
Does my name refer to my physical body, or to this incorporeal consciousness? Maybe it's my soul?.. It didn't help that Alan had no idea what a soul was in the first place. An unrelenting stream of disjointed ideas he never would've considered outside of this 2mental isolation kick-started the engine of an unsettling train of thought. One that was both mind expanding, and slightly terrifying.
******
While Alan performed a disturbing set of mental gymnastics, he was unaware of the aggravated Banded Roc perched in the boughs of the nearby Plantain tree, studying him carefully.
It was beginning to lose patience. Over the past thirty minutes, it had dropped four Silver Lake Chubs in the vicinity around that lazy creature, yet not once had it taken notice of the offerings. All of them had already fallen still, and were now beginning to spoil. Still it remained motionless.
The blue one would never behave in such a manner.
The Roc took to the sky, forced to hunt for a fifth target. In a bout of good fortune, it managed to swoop down and snag a pair of small Chubs that wandered too close to the shore. Before they could retreat to the depths, both fish found themselves gripped by sharp talons, and torn from the water.
Lifted up, and into an unfamiliar atmosphere, the Chubs thrashed ineffectually in the grip of their captor, making a desperate attempt at escaping.
Determined to get the attention of the motionless reptilian, the Roc lowered altitude and once more dropped it's flailing payload. This time, the Roc's aim was true.
******
Alan was trapped in a spiral of bleak realizations when a sudden wet slap to the chest broke his intense concentration. [Meditation] deactivated, shocking him back to reality just in time to witness the yellow-collared Roc land gracefully among the flattened out grass. It hopped towards him, moving from side to side, finally coming to a stop a few feet away.
At first, the unexpected return of his awareness was confused as just another elaborate illusionary conception that had been thought into existence by his overeager imagination. Following the gaze of the noisily chattering bird for no better reason than it was all he could think to do led Alan to discovering a pair of Lake Chubs flopping near the edge of his leaf bed.
The overpowering stench of fish was enough to break him out of his stupor. He looked down and noticed tendrils of cold, sticky ooze dribbled from his stomach and onto his legs. Understanding dawned on him in that very same moment. Due to some kind of confliction between the Passive [Whittling] Skill, and [Meditation], Alan had managed to get himself lost in his own mind, where he'd wound up getting tangled up in chilling realizations about his own personal reality.
The bleak understandings that had just felt so profound, and Earth-shattering, now seemed to him to be the rambling delusions of an unhinged lunatic. “Thanks for the assistance dick,” Alan said, giving the Roc a nod of appreciation. Storing his dagger and unfinished carving with a thought, he scooped up the closest Chub.
“Things were getting really weird for a minute there,” he mumbled and picked up the other weakly thrashing fish. Both were covered with dirt, and trailing streamers of dried grass. They were bleeding heavily from multiple puncture wounds that, judging by the symmetrical patterns, came from the Roc's talons.
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Seeing no reason to turn down free Experience, Alan drove his claws into their soft, fleshy bodies and recieved the expected Kill Log notifications.
(x2) Remarkable! You have defeated a Lvl 2 Silver Lake Chub! +8 Exp gained!
To the delight of the Roc, Alan cocked back his arm and waited for the bird to get airborne before throwing the mangled fish in his right hand as far as he could. Eager to rid himself of the second carcass, Alan shrugged his shoulders and hurled it in the direction that he had sent the first.
Fed up with smelling like fish guts and ripe anus, Alan walked back to the lake, and did his best to scrub the oily residue out from under his claws. He was only partially successful, but after spending ten minutes vigorously grinding his hands together, and digging under his nails with his resummoned dagger, Alan was forced to call it quits.
Grumbling about the lack of soap causing him to smell the part of the animal he looked to be, Alan returned to his luxuriously soft bed of folded leaves. As his body sank into the velvety surface, it took every ounce of resolve that he had to keep himself from falling right to sleep.
“Wake up asshole!“ Alan opened his eyes and demanded of himself. “I've still Gotta use my Class Scroll… I'll look like a real douche tomorrow when it comes time to test out our new Class Skills if I don't have a Class to work with.“
All it took was a thought, and the [Warden of Blight] Class Scroll would appear in his hand. This was a moment he had been anticipating for as long as he could remember, yet still he hesitated. This was another potentially life altering addition, and one that, as far as he knew, was permanent.
It wouldn't be surprising to learn that like everything else, Classes would eventually be subjected to Evolution. However, with the [Warden of Blight] Class serving as the foundation of any potential Class Evolutions, once he opened the scroll, there was no turning away from the path this particular Class was going to open for him.
Neither did Alan know if using a Class Scroll on his Beast form was going to simultaneously provide the same Class to his Human side. And that was something else he was conflicted about. Having a single Class shared between two forms would make it much easier to keep track of his abilities. With both races using the same Skills, it was safe to assume the rate of Skill progression would be far better than if he had two separate Classes to worry about.
Yet at the same time, it could easily be argued that possessing a separate Class for each of his individual Races would be a benefit in the long term. Having a diverse array of Class Skills with which to lean upon might one day be the only deciding factor between life and death. It was sure to be confusing at first, but if given enough time, Alan truly believed that he could handle it.
Time… Alan sighed. He was eager to escape the clutches to the Sandstone Palace to search for Rexus, among many other reasons, but he couldn't deny that the time dilation could provide him with the perfect environment to get a handle on his new Class.
How can I sit around playing with Skills, knowing that Rexus is out there alone? No, enough is enough. I've made the best I could out of the situation, and although I hated nearly every moment of it, I will complete my Oath to Reggie, and then leave this Dungeon far more capable than when I entered. But it's time to move forward. I'll use tomorrow to get an idea of what my Class can do, and to explore the rest of the Safe Zone…
Alan still had ten hours remaining before [Soulgem Cycle] came off of cooldown, and just over sixty hours left before the Second Floor Trials we're set to begin. As long as he used his time efficiently, he saw no reason why he couldn't complete at least the majority of his objectives.
With an abundance of Golden Plantain trees, a supposedly valuable commodity on the outside, harvesting them all would be his first objective in the morning. One way or another, the Sandstone Palace was about to fail, and with it, everything in the Safe Zone. Completely pillaging the environment was usually frowned upon, and Alan didn't need to be a genius to understand why. But when that very same environment was about to succumb to a dimensional collapse, he couldn't think of a single reason not to take advantage of the abundance of free space in his Storage Case.
After that, he would ask Su'ong to accompany him out to try and figure out whatever Class Skills the Scrolls provided them with, gathering up as much Experience as possible in the process. There were bound to be better sources of Experience, and possibly better Mystic Fruits or other valuables in one of the other Zones.
When taking into account that he had already heard multiple sources state that the Tutorial was some kind of sick spectacle in which accruing wealth was one of the primary objectives, Alan planned to leave no stone unturned. Between [Appraise], and Su'ong's knowledge of the Tutorial Realm, Alan fully intended to gather up anything that looked even remotely valuable.
In order to cover as much ground as possible, it would have to be a cursory search at best. If the beasts weren't too much to handle, there was always the option of splitting up. Thinking about splitting up led Alan to another issue. With a shared inventory, how in all the Nine Hells was he supposed to know what was his, and what was Su'ong's?
Sure, she had her own Storage device, yet at the same time, the case was listed as Soul-bound to her as well. Su'ong had already proven her ability to access Alan's Storage Case after all.
One thing at a time. There's much larger fish to fry than divvying up a few Lotus Coins.
With millions of (Copper) Lotus Coins already tucked away in his Storage Case, it might've been overkill to obsessively seek out additional sources of revenue. But until somebody from administration showed up to make him stop, Alan was going to do all he could to ensure that his Tutorial experience was as profitable as possible.
It really didn't help matters that he had no idea what a (Copper) Lotus coin was worth. Luckily, with all of the random junk in his inventory, all he needed to do to find out was to compare a few descriptions, and use them to determine a baseline value.
With so few Humans left, were going to need a miracle just to survive the untamed wilds of the surface. It's looking more and more like hiring outside assistance is going to be our only option. A mutual defense alliance would be ideal, but with the animosity that Humanity has somehow accrued, I don't know that I can realistically expect anyone to ally themselves with me.
That left mercenaries, and the like. Not only was hiring trustworthy protection bound to be expensive, Alan had no idea how to seek out such a group, or organization, to begin with. Would there be companies in the Multiverse that specialized in protection? And if there were, would any of them be willing to work with a Race as hated as the Humans?
If I can garner enough wealth and attention during this sham of a Tutorial, perhaps I can catch the eye of someone who has the means to help… Help that will come at a heavy price I'm sure... It's safe to assume that everyone who knows about Humanity returning to the Multiverse knows that we are doomed without help. Weeding out spies and assassins is going to be another serious problem to consider… However, with a well-worded System Oath… “That's enough,” Alan growled out in an attempt to quiet down his runaway thoughts.
Before he found another reason to hesitate, Alan summoned his Class Scroll from inventory.