....Goddamit, why do I always wake up in pain nowadays. Fuck. Thank god I didn't die after I passed out from blood loss. Why aren't I dead anyway? Last I looked I was bleeding from a stump that used to be my entire leg. I opened my eyes, looking up at the sky above, noticing the orange tint of dawn, still lingering in the east casting a deep shadow over the glen I had fallen asleep in after giving my all towards Stein. I try to rub the sleep out of my eyes as I look around for him. I had thought that perhaps Stein would've had to stay right next to me to recover, but judging by his absence in the spot, as well as, around the other parts of the clearing, Stein's just gone. Well...that's....that's ok, I guess. Probably went off to hunt or something. I don't see any tracks though. Wonder where he could've....Oh.

So, I have questions. Several actually. First, how the hell do I have a glowing, transparent leg? Pretty sure I never tried to make that happen on purpose. Then again, it explains why I was able to somewhat walk before. I mean, I guess it makes sense that it's there. I'm pretty sure that creature tore my leg right off with the first hit. Then I was all focused on my Mana Pool and figuring out a spell to kill the creature. When I stumbled over to try to save Stein, it never even occurred to me to ask how I could get over there if I only had one leg, but HOW is it there? WHY is it there? Second, why can I move my hand through the leg? I mean, my arm just passes right through. It feels a bit cold, but other than that, nothing is happening to my arm or the glowing leg. Third. How does it work? I'm pretty sure it's magic, but I don't think I'm casting any spells to do this. Wait, maybe there's something in the logs? I'm pretty sure I ignored them while the fight was happening. So, let me just pull up the log. Maybe that will help.

History: (21 Hours Ago)

Congratulations on purposefully breaking your membrane and accessing your magic for the first time, you have earned +5 INT and the ability, Mana Manipulation.

For gaining an INT of 50, you earn the ability: Dual Thinking

For reaching level 10 in Meditation, you have been given the choice of advancing the skill, or choosing another related one.

For using Magic Spear, without knowing the spell, you have earned +1 INT and +1 WIS, and the spell: Magic Spear.

For killing a Named Superior Monster, Grendel, you have earned 10 levels, +5 STR, +5 CON, and +1 LCK.

For gaining a CON of 25, you have earned the ability: Passive Regeneration

For feeding, healing, and fighting with an animal companion, you have earned the skill: Animal Companionship

...Combination found between Affinity: Life and Ability: Passive Regeneration

New Skill Formed: Physical Resistance

New Spell Formed: Growth

For using Regenerate, without knowing the spell, you have earned +1 INT and +1 WIS, and the spell: Regenerate

. . . . . Warning: Newcomer Effect ending in (2:00:00:00)

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Ok. So a lot of things happened that fight. Jesus. Just....ok. I think I at least somewhat knew about the stat increases, but everything else is a bit much to take in. I mean, it's a lot of skills. Just....too much right now. Plus, I was almost asleep for an entire day. Like a straight 24 hour day...Maybe that's because I bottomed out my MP? Makes sense to me, although nothing here seems to be responsible for the leg, unless it's [Mana Manipulation]? But I'm not actively doing anything right now. Wait! [Observe].

Magical Prosthesis: Not too many people can claim to have made one of these, as knowledge of the intricacies of the limb it is meant to replace, as well as, the constant activation of magic manipulation is required for the limb to remain present. This was made in part by your knowledge of anatomy combined with your inherent ability: Dual Thinking.

.....Huh. Wait, how? I'm not really thinking about that right now. How is this ability I got even doing that, when I can't even tell how to use the skill in the first place?...God, I don't want to think about this anymore. Worrying has been all I've been doing lately. I need to relax or calm down or something. Sighing, I try to pull my mind back from the anxiety and focus around me.

Where Stein had lain, was the remains of a pool of blood. Well, it would have been a pool if it had not soaked into the ground staining the ground. There was a trail of the dried blood leading away from here, but it didn't go very far. I think he's ok. Don't really know if that Spell, I guess, could heal bones or not, but at least he's no longer bleeding out. I look over to the...Grendel to find that its corpse is half-eaten. Oh. At least Stein had lunch....and the fire's out. Great. I mean, I could get more wood, but it's kind of warm right now, so I don't see much of a point...although my stomach did just growl.

Guess that mean's it's Grendel steak for lunch. Got to get up and get more firewood then. I start to get up, before I realize, maybe I should be slow with my.....magic leg. Don't really know what kind of force it could tak-Oh! That's.....that's weird. How does that work? I only really expected my regeneration to just close off the leg into a stump, but.....it looks like the flesh is slowly filling in, downward from the knee, through the magic leg. Huh. Well....I guess that's good. Judging from the MP usage alone, I'd have used it all up in a couple hours trying to maintain this. Probably would get a longer time if I leveled up Meditation more, but what would be the point if I had to stay still for it? I also noticed something weird about my HP. While I did level, and get the appropriate points, something seemed off about my health. Usually, I'd have my level times my con, but a 49 times 25 does not equal 1020. Is it because I've lost a leg? Either way, it seems to be slowly going up because it just got 1 more for some reason. Wait, I just realized something; I might not event have to walk to get firewood.

According to that log, I got a skill called, Growth. Could I just...grow a tree that could be easier to turn into firewood? Let me look at the spell....Ok, so looks like there's a bunch of good news. The spell doesn't cost any MP due to my affinity, and that means it won't detract from the MP going to my leg, which is nice. The description, though, only says that it grows plants. It doesn't say that it has a set range to it though. It's vague about how far it can go, which is weird. Guess the only way to find out the range is to try it out. I put myself together into a stance. It'd just be weird for me if I didn't have a good stance for performing magic. I don't really know if I have to pour my MP into it, if it can just activate by itself. [Growth]......Nothing's happening. That was....kind of disappointing really. I mean, I wouldn't really like being a Druid in real life, but being something like that Poison Ivy villain as a side thing could be cool. Am I just....doing it wrong? Could it be that I need to set a target? Oh shit! I forgot! I have that help function don't I? Help [Growth Targeting].

Spell: Growth

  Type: Multi-Target (1 <= X <= 500)

......Wow. That's......that's a lot of things I could do So I have to manually target something for it to work, how do I target? Might as well do it again. Help [Target].

Targeting: To target something, one must first specify to the system what object/entity that they want to include for the effect to occur.

.....That did not help at all. Didn't even say how I should target som-Wait. Maybe it did? Let me just check something real quick. Looking around, I try to find something I could use it on. Sure, there were the magical plants from earlier, but I don't really want to make something bigger that could already flash-freeze/fry an insect. That's asking for trouble. Best to just stick with a sapling or something. Thankfully, there were some at the edge of the clearing. Now, let's try this. [Growth] Sapling.

The little sprout starts to shake a bit before I can see visible growth. It was kind of like a time lapse video where you see the tree grow, except it was on fast forward. I could see the stem of the sapling grow bark, and the leaves growing alongside, begin to become branches. Leaves grew wider, and the sapling shot up to about a bit over my height over the course of about a minute, before stopping altogether. The stopping I think occurred within 2 seconds after that, so I was glad I didn't blink, otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell when it did. I'm...a bit confused as to why it isn't still growing, but then I think I know the reason. The sapling isn't a sapling anymore. It changed so much that it couldn't be targeted by the effect, so it just cancelled. At least, I think that's how it is, maybe Growth is just a spell effect that only lasts that long. I need to test it on something that takes awhile to grow, even with Growth, so I push my attention towards the other saplings surrounding the clearing.

Further tests with Growth, I think have revealed a lot about how the spell worked. If I used the wrong name when identifying something it didn't work. I could control the speed of plant growth. If I used a plural, all available saplings near me grew at the same time, but at a reduced rate. I also noticed that if I said tree, I could further the growth of what used to be a sapling, to something I'd call an elder. It was taller than the other trees. It was basically double the height of the others that I hadn't used the spell on, and it's branches overshadowed the rest of the trees. Its bark had turned a bit green, and the leaves had a glossy shine to them. I really wanted to test how far it could go, but once I tried to Growth an elder, it didn't seem to take effect, or if it did, it was at a very reduced rate where it wasn't even noticeable anymore, like the root system spreading out.

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You know.....experimenting was a nice distraction. I didn't think about how alone I was, I didn't worry about my potential demise, and I stopped thinking about the crawling sensation around my stump leg. Oh god. I just thought about it. Ohhhh, quick! Think of something else......Yes! Civilization, I got that quest awhile ago to get there, and then I'd be able to talk to people, apparently. I.....I mean, I remember it, but....How do I find it? I could try to find a river. I have put off trying to find a source of water, hoping for rain, but drinking the juices of leftovers can only do so much....maybe that's where Stein went? No. He left. If he didn't want to stay behind, then that's his prerogative. Right now, I have to focus on me. First order of business, collecting the food and preparing it for my backpack-satchel thing.

Before that though, I need to get the firewood. So, using growth, I managed to grow some saplings until they seemed to be the right size. Thankfully, I can fully stop the effect when I want to, otherwise I'd probably have to figure out the right word to just have them grow to the right height or something. I managed to break some of the branches into pieces before throwing them into the campfire. Sure, I'd have to start the fire again, but this saved a lot of time. Having done that, I guess the next step would be to head over to where I had planned on sleeping, as that's where I put most of the tools that I had made, basically the bowstring and the starting stand. I did manage to start the fire again using some of the branches that I had grown. After I was able to get it started, and it kept, I headed back towards the tool area to grab the one thing I was missing.

I grab the rock that I had sharpened to cut up those mind breakers earlier, and start to work on butchering a piece off the Grendel. This Grendel's flesh is kind of tough to cut. My rock is barely doing anything to get through his skin. Luckily, Stein had already managed to tear a big chunk out of the thing's skin and scales, so I just have to cut some of the choice bits of meat from that area. Wait, did....did the poison mushrooms infect the meat? It probably wouldn't affect me, but....did Stein get it? Is that why he left? Shit. No. Don't worry about him. Worry about yourself. Just...focus on the meat. Focus on the smell of smoke. Focus on that taste getting in yo-Ohh god. This tastes horrible. It's like....I don't even know right now, it just feels like I'm eating.....I cut into his intestines didn't I. Crap. Literally. Well...I have a bunch of things that I could do today, but finding water and getting that taste out of my mouth is right near the top of the list.

The first thing on my list really had to be getting myself some goddamned clothes, but before that was simply a quality of life thang rather than a necessity. Now, I would definitely like that, because everything is just uncomfortable right now without them. I get hot and cold too easily now....I wish I had pants. I could try to fashion myself something from all the wildlife around here, but....I don't think I'd be too good at doing that. I could try to tan the Grendel hide. I remember that you have to dry the skin for a bit, before trying to use anything like leather working which I don't even know how to do. However, I don't think I could cut it into smaller pieces without the proper tools. So, although that's the first priority on my list of things to get done, I guess I'll have to table that for now.

The second thing I could do is find a water source. I haven't drank anything in...days. My mouth gets slightly parched at the thought, which raises the question of how I'm able to have gotten the necessary moisture before. I might've gotten some moisture from the food I've already eaten, but water from cooked food isn't exactly a definitive source that's reliable enough for my needs. There might be a lake, stream, or a river nearby. That also might be where Stein left to go to. Maybe I could track him with Survival Instincts? Nah, doesn't seem like it'd be a part of its wheelhouse. It's probably more or less a danger sense, or something, I don't know.

Maybe.....maybe I should just try to find water. That seems to be a more....urgent requirement, considering that I was asleep for almost an entire day...and thinking that has made me realized my mouth is drier than Pakistan right now. Maybe I could find Stein too. He was able to rip through the skin of the Grendel, so maybe if I get him back, he could help make me clothes. Yeah. Just...order things out. Step by step, so that it can be manageable. So, I guess I just have to pick a direction after the blood trail ends? Well, good ol' stick can do that for me, won't you Mr. Stick. Wait, no. Stop. When you humanize objects things will do a noticeable downturn.....no. Just no.

I picked up the stick, put it on it's end, and let go. It fell to the ground, pointing away from the cave, kind of in the direction of the Twilight Rose from earlier....huh. Should...should I be worried?....Nah. No. Just a coincidence. So, setting myself to wander in that direction, I activate Observe to see if I catch anything interesting or important. Nothing seems to be catching my eye, though. I thought maybe I could find another cool flower or magical plant or something. You'd kind of expect more if you went in the same direction, right?

For reaching level 10 in Observe, you have been given the choice to advance the skill, or choose another related one.

...Oh yeah. That was kind of something that happened during the fight too, wasn't it? I also have to think about that too, don't I? Wait, maybe.....Help [Advance].

Advance: Within the Panopticon, the term 'advance' can mean one of three things. The first is the 'advancement' of skills. The second is the 'advancement' of spells. The third, and final one, is the 'advancement' of classes. To better illustrate what occurs between these three options: Keen Eyes has reached level 10. It may then advanced to become Eagle Eyes. The spell, Handheld Spark has reached level 10. It may then advanced to become Burning Hands. The class, Tailor, has reached level 25. It may then advanced to Expert Tailor.

....So, if I choose to advance Observe and Meditation, I could get better skills. I assume they'd start at level one though. However, if I keep them I can get similar skills to them anyway? It kind of sucks that I don't really know what advancement does with spells, unless it's not saying something here. Plus, it doesn't say how you can just advance them. I'm thinking maybe I have to acknowledge that I want to advance it, but I'd rather not try it out because I'm not ready for anything to go wrong. Knowing the system, it probably won't unless I find the right keyword or something. Hmmm. I've got nothing better to do except try it. With how Newcomer's looking, I might not be getting any new skills after its effect goes away.....Now that I think about it, why is it an effect?

I mean, I get why I have it, but why is it an effect with a countdown on it? What is causing me to even have that? Shouldn't there be something different there. Like, I know in other games, constant effects are usually caused by titles, status changes, or something else along that line of thought. I know that they exist because I got one awhile ago, but I can't seem to find any mention of them anywhere. Shouldn't there be something like that in the system?

Congratulations for finding out the existence of a hidden function, without consulting other people. For that, you have received +2 WIS, +2 INT, and the privilege of viewing the hidden function of Titles. You can view your current titles within your stats. Titles: Newcomer, Sinner, Defender of the Mind, Survivalist

...Ok. It's a little bit weird that it knew exactly what I was trying to get at earlier, but I won't say no to free stat points. Alright, do I just say titles, or is it in my stats?...It's in my stats, under my main headline of text. Apparently I have four? I understand two of them, as they cause the effects that I get, but the fourth one doesn't really seem to do anything. It's just called Survivalist, and I don't really remember receiving a message saying I earned it or anything....Help [Survivalist]?

Warning: Help function does not work when inquiring about the purposes of titles, only descriptions which regard its origins. If you want more information regarding titles, please consult the local ^&*!($^.

No help there, huh. Shame. Thought this would help with everything, with how it's been working, but I suppose there had to be a limit at some point. I at least had a thought where I would be able to get some history of when I received it, or at least a description on what it actually does. Maybe it was something I got here as soon as I woke up? It would make sense, considering that History does not have any info on it at all. Now that I've dealt with those pertinent issues though, there's nothing stopping me from continuing on, so I guess I'll just start walking. I'll tell you what though, if I wasn't lost, alone, and trying to stay alive, this would be a nice nature walk.

The sunlight is streaking through the branches above my head. I can hear the faint chitter of some squirrels or some weird equivalent. Birds are chirping overhead, singing their songs of territorial disputes or maybe mating calls. Who's to say? The one thing I notice though, is that the bugs.....are more prevalent than I'd thought they'd be. Which is a problem....considering I'm basically naked. Hmmm...I don't really want to be more of a Wildman than I already am. I'm already not doing myself an favors walking around with nothing but a leafy loincloth.

So, with a bit of hesitation, I push on, although at a bit of a faster pace than before. Sure there were still sights to see, and sounds to listen to that I totally was able to seep into if I just go back into my memories, thank you again perfect recall skill, but I just swept past it all, activated Sharp Hearing, and listened only for sources of water. Eventually, the sounds of the forest started to fade out, as I focused in on one specific sound, the trickling of a river. Quickening my pace, I ran through the trees, hoping to get some liquid in me, noticing only now how parched I'd been. As I ran, I remembered that, supposedly, a man could only survive without water for 3 days. Although, by my count, I had been out here for a little bit longer than that, if I count my time in the caves. Perhaps it was because I had gotten some amount of moisture from the food that I've been eating?

Putting aside that thought, I noticed that after passing a couple of flowering trees, I could see it. The river. It was probably the widest river I had seen in my life, but it was also pretty shallow. It was probably only 4 or 5 meters wide, while it only went down about a meter and a half maybe less. I could see dozens of rocks underneath it, as well as some small fish that darted about, hither and thither. The bank didn't really have sand or dirt, as it was just more rocks surrounding the river and infusing its bed. I immediately dived forward, scraping my hands on some of the rocks near the bank of the river, as I began to drink greedily. Sure, it's not clean. It's probably full of bacteria, but it was clear, I had no container for it, and I probably could survive it. After all, if I could survive something that literally cause my bones and organs to decay, I could survive getting a bit of dysentery.

As the cold, crisp water washed down my throat, and got rid of the unmentionable taste that shan't be discussed. I almost upchucked it up, but I managed to swallow it down. After that, I just slowly sipped it from my hands, but then I noticed something a bit further upstream. It....it wasn't a normal animal, to say the least. Well, if anything could be called normal here. Whatever it was, it was big though, a little over half of its body had managed to go across the entire river, while mine could barely make it an eighth across if I were to lie down. It's body was covered in a shaggy fur, but it wasn't...I don't think it's fur. It looked more like.....plants? Yeah, it kind of looked like a bunch of little leaves or grass just growing off of the main body along with some mossy patches around where its joints would be. It's legs looked a bit like logs, coming off of the main body, while it had a tail that looked more akin to a sort of ivy than any actual solid structure with muscles in it. I pulled my gaze up towards the head, which was still drinking.

It's head....how do I explain what I'm looking at? It's ears, weren't really ears. They looked more like the knots that you'd find sometimes on a log, with its head being covered in the same grass leaf stuff, while also somehow looking like bark in the places where the grass didn't cover. At first, I had a thought that perhaps it was just an animal that covered itself in plant armor. There had been animals known to do that nowadays ever since the escalation within South America. But, I couldn't really see any traces of muscle or flesh beneath anything. So, either it was covered in a very camouflage intensive shell, which was unlikely considering that its size almost dwarfed the Grendel while it was alive, or it was actually just made up of the stuff. However, my musings about its actually body-state were put on hold, as I had noticed it had opened its eyes. Little patches of moss seemed to retreat from them, which was perhaps the only fleshy thing on the entirety of this creature. I couldn't exactly tell from this far away, but the color of its eyes almost seemed to fade into the rest of its being. i tried getting a closer look as I tried to calmly walk away from it so that nothing bad woul-....Crap. I'm staring directly into its eyes.