Clearly, this method worked for Tobias but it was a close-run combat, two thing struck Tobias while he had clearly failed at assessing the level of risk. Because he had pushed and even in the middle of the combat when it was clear that he was in trouble, he had continued and pushed to the end. The result of the combat taught him one thing the greater the risk, the greater the effort, the more reward that this game generated. As a businessman this was something that he was familiar with, once he had decided on a path, he was known for driving it to success. While failure had occurred in the past it had normally brought the greatest rewards.

Now he considered the next problem how was he going manage to survive the cluster of rats that were nearest to the clearing. It seemed that he would be able to separate them from the rats by the tree, but the problem was how to reduce the numbers that arrived at once. With the new defence attribute the smaller of the rats should just burn up

Tobias moved the far side of the clearing and found that the rats were starting to respawn. Experimenting with the new aura with re-spawns a plan slowly came together. The Aura of pain cost too much mana to last throughout the combat, it worked best with small numbers. A group of 4 or 5 rats were crispy critters within the second round, yet once the numbers reached 10 he could only support 1 round of combat and over 12 attackers meant that casting the aura of flame would likely result in him passing out due to a lack of mana within the first round. And he had already discovered that was sure to lead to his death if there were any attackers left alive.

He learnt a few things about the rats as well. They were highly aggressive but only protected a small area around each nest, but as had been previously discovered they were social so if a rat became aggravated and crossed into another rat's territory then those rats become aggravated and targeted the same target. Additional it looked like there was a further mechanism that controlled aggravation as if the closest nest was targeted, then other nests territories which were not crossed but were “close” also aggravated.

The closest group itself more than 15 rats in size which meant that just pulling and allowing them to die as a result of the Auras was clearly a non-starter. Tobias counted 6 nests and the nests were all in close range to each other so could be expected to aggro together. Separating the boss group from the front group, meant that the two remaining groups could be treated separately. However, it was important to kill the Boss group before the middle group respawned.

Tobias first goal was on not dying as a part of the solution, so what was required a method to reduce the numbers before Tobias had to start direct combat. With six nests and 4 to 6 rats per nest, Tobias faced 24 to 36, which was as many rats as he had managed to kill up to the point of the respawns.

He had noticed that rats focus on the prey and charge in straight lines towards it. While some kind of pit trap or wall would help control the rats, as he thought time seemed to pass very slowly, until in a moment of inspiration, a wall of spikes. He had branches, a trade-skill knife. While examining the branch the only recipe that he could see was for the club, from real life (RL), he knew how to make a stake, So he focused on the branch and used the knife to shape one end into a point. The strain was noticeable but in another moment of inspiration a new recipe formed, that of simple stake.

Basic: Simple stake, Branch and trade-skill knife, 95%, 1 stamina.

Next Tobias moved back to the fire pit, restarted the fire, started to focus on the simple stake as he fire-hardened the point. Again, there was a moment of inspiration and yet another recipe appeared.

Simple: Fire-harden stake, Simple Stake and fire, 85%, 1 stamina.

He now had 1 fire harden stake that did 1-3 points damage, he knew that he would need many more stakes so he started the process. Trade-skills were simple in execution Tobias found but expensive in terms of Stamina. Stamina did not regenerate the same way that mana and hit points did. A success cost the amount of stamina in the recipe, and a failure cost twice that. After experiencing the negative effects of zero mana and hit-points, and large de-buff that he experienced when attempting to creating his second club. Tobias decided not to risk falling short in stamina again. So carefully he attempted to create 25 stakes. Which he estimated he would need as not all would trap a rat and that felt a sufficient number to reduce the number of attackers in the first wave.

Quickly he reduced his stamina to 3 points as he produced 5 stakes with one failure. He learnt that when he failed the components were consumed and turned into trash, and that his trade-skill knife took damage. This whole process looked more complex than expected. Pushing on he created a further stake then had to wait for his stamina to regenerate. At 0.1 per round, it took 10 minutes before he could try again. All in all, he felt that it was going to be a close-run thing. After an hour he was surprised as he heard a ping and a flash of light and he gained an attribute point. At this point, he had 11 stakes. He attempted to place in Endurance which his intuition indicated that it affected his regeneration rate. Only to discover via the annoying blue screens that his strength was insufficient to increase his Endurance. So, he had no choice but to increase his strength. Nearly an hour later he suffered another failure. With this came the same noise and flash and another attribute point. That went straight into endurance. Stamina increased to 20 and Tobias instantly gained 10 points. It seemed that failing at a skill tended to have a greater impact on the chance of improvement than succeeding. This was quite a significant insight and would influence the rest of Tobias time in the game. He now had 16 simple stakes only nine to go. Checking his list of recipes, he noticed that the chance of creating a simple stake had increased by 1% points. At some point, he had improved his chances of success.

Simple stake, Branch and trade-skill knife, 96%, 1 stamina.

However, when he examined his knife, it’s durability had fallen by more than expected, as far as he could remember he had only 3 failures using the knife yet the durability had reduced by 4.

Basic trade-skill knife Durability 96%

Continuing crafting the Stakes as fast as possible with the bonus stamina, he was able to produce 4 more before failing again, checking the knife it’s durability had reduced by 3, and his stamina was now down to 5. Time was pressing but there was no choose he had to continue with the plan. 3 usable mana 5 stakes to go. The next was a fail, then another fail, Tobias being the man he was continued and failed again. A mild curse and the checking his recipe the success rate of the stake had improved, it was something, but the impact on his knife was significant.

Simple stake, Branch and trade-skill knife, 97%, 1 stamina.

Basic trade-skill knife Durability 67%

Over the next 40 minutes, he was able to complete the stakes but it was clear that the knife had reached the end of it’s working life. This was a problem as while he had the stakes it was clear he would need to fire harden them and there would failures and that would result in fewer stakes. So once his stamina recovered to 10 points Tobias started to fire harden the stakes. Success. Success, Fail and the fire goes out, consuming all the firewood and the stake. Success. Fail and fire goes out again, Fail and the Fire explodes consuming the tinder that Tobias had prepare so that he could restart the fire again when the next fail occurred. Tobias decided to increase the size of the fire pit and not leave anything that was too flammable near the pit after that small explosion. He was lucky that he was able to save the stakes that were ready to be hardened as they were stacked near the fire so that he did not have to fetch them. Since he needed to regenerate his stamina Tobias changed plans, he looked around at the clearing and select a location to stand, then checking where the various nests of the first group were determined which shrubs would hide the stakes from the soon to be charging rats. Then behind each shrub, he would plant a cluster of three stakes, marking each shrub in order of importance, He uses the first 3 stakes and traps the first shrub.

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Re-starting the fire again, as stamina allows works to prepare the combat zone. 12 shrubs, 36 stakes. Completed shrubs - 1/12, stakes used 6/36.

Success, Success, Fail, Success. Completed shrubs - 2/12, stakes used 10/36.

Fail, Fail, Success, Success, Success. Completed shrubs - 3/12, stakes used 15/36.

Simple: Fire-harden stake, Simple Stake and fire, 86%, 1 stamina.

Success, Fail, Success, Success. Completed shrubs - 4/12, stakes used 20/36.

Success, Success, Success. Completed shrubs - 5/12, stakes used 23/36.

Success, Success, Success. Completed shrubs - 6/12, stakes used 26/36.

New Simple Recipe

Simple: Stake Trap, 3 Fire-harden stakes and Trade-skill knife, 26%, 1 stamina.

Simple: Fire-harden stake, Simple Stake and fire, 87%, 1 stamina.

Tobias ignored the recipe for the trap as he did not have stamina to spare and the time required to dig the trap into the round was useful regen time.

Success, Success, Fail, Success. Completed shrubs - 7/12, stakes used 30/36.

Success, Success, Success. Completed shrubs - 8/12, stakes used 33/36.

Success, Success, Success. Completed shrubs - 9/12, stakes used 36/36

Time was up, He just knew that he needed to pull the closest group now, kill them, survive, regenerate (at least that was easy for everything but stamina), if lucky allocate some points, and immediately pull the group with the big black rat. If not then the first group that he had killed and then he would have to start all over again. Tobias wanted to succeed, he had a feeling that the system rewarded effort, but to him, that meant success as well. It is not good enough to try, you must take a plan and give 100% and accept what happens but always plan for success.

Player Tobias 

Male

Characteristics 

Strength

1

Constitution

1 + 1

Endurance

1 + 1

Agility 

2  

Intelligence

3

Ego

6    

Perception

1

Attack

2

Defence

1

Hit-points

20

2 per Round

Mana

15

3 per Round

Stamina

20

.2 per Round

Attributes

Mental Toughness (Ego)  

2

Affinity for Fire (Ego)

1

Mana Boost (Intellect)

1

Skills

Flame Aura

3

4 damage per tick

3 per tick

Pain Aura

1

Reduce attack

1 per attacker

Minor Predator Recognition

2

Flaming weapon

1

Minor Gathering

2

Minor Item recognition

2

Basic Trade-skill

1

Perception

1

Stealth

1

History

Near death Experience

Bonus Skill point

1 used

Near death lover

Bonus Characteristic

1 used

Fast Growth

Bonus Characteristic

1 Used