Chapter 7. Skills*

Before fighting I checked Mana Circulation. The description had changed and not by just a little, but it had some major changes that even I did not understand regarding mana and circulation terms.

[Mana Circulation]

[You have discovered a way to circulate the mana that enters your as you meditate in a correct way. Increase recovery while not moving, slowly builds up your foundation the more you circulate mana after fully recovering.]

I had no idea what mana did, I only knew that I could breathe it in as stated in the description, but foundation? Which foundation, what foundation? Another question was added to my list.

I had already checked the mana circulation skill, the first one in the notifications so might as well continue with the next in line. But for the next one, we might need a goblin.

The change was felt when the goblins attacked me, I knew how to dodge without wasting a lot of energy and move to a place that would give me a small advantage in the next move.

I knew where an attack would do the most damage and which hit would cripple the enemy in the fastest way possible.

I noticed that killing F grade goblins did not give me the energy that was obtained upon killing them. It was not mana, you could tell after getting a feel of both. They were similar but were fundamentally different in a way, somehow probably. I now read the prompt that described the Demon's fighting instincts.

[Demon's Fighting Instincts]

[Your instincts are honed through constantly fights. While in a fight, predict the opponent's weak points with higher accuracy as well as which attacks are more important to dodge and which you can take, learning to minimize the damage taken.]

[Fighting instincts] was a skill that any person who fights regularly for longer periods would love having, like me. Correcting your movements while dodging in a way that was efficient and attacking in a way that increased the damage delivered.

Increasing fighting instincts would probably only be possible with more fighting, they were instincts that I honed through fighting and what could increase them more. The next in line was axe-wielding mastery and dual-wielding mastery.

These skills were not something that I was able to activate.

The name was more like an indication of the stage I had reached. The axe was easier to use with both hands and did not feel like it was out of place. How to use the momentum of the previous strike to empower the next attack, blocking, deflecting, the knowledge regarding how to use an axe was more like a habit now.

[Axe Mastery (Novice)]

[You have started on the path of the axe, a weapon that represents war. Know how to use an axe more proficiently than most entities in your tier but it is anything special.]

[Dual Wielding Mastery (Novice)]

[You use two of your preferred weapon. Two is not always better than one if you have no knowledge on the topic but you are proficient in using two weapons compared to most other entities in your tier.]

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The description also showed which stage of mastery I was in and as expected it was a novice. I probably had to learn how to use an axe in a better way but how could I do that in a forest where I could find nothing more than goblins of different grades.

Well, we could figure that out later but now I came to the most 'shocking' part of the notifications.

[Failed to awaken Bloodline.]

I let that sink in as I once again read the messages.

My parents looked normal and we had a normal family, not part of some historic or ancient family, not that I know of. It was not even confirmed that bloodlines were based on genetic signatures or something else entirely.

I was human I knew that from what the status showed. But there were things that even the system did not know, it previously showed my bloodline as 'none', but now it shows dormant.

For the next few hours, I tried out my skills as much as I could. The armed goblins that had given me so much trouble, to beat them I had to always start with a sneak attack on the archer and then clean out the others.

But the stat increase and knowing how to attack efficiently had me killing the other two even before the archer goblin tried to do something.

But still, I did not feel confident fighting against the chief. I once again went to training, but this time instead of normal goblins, my opponents were E grade goblins. Yes E grade and like last time, I was unarmed.

No closed eyes, that was for later if I survived this bout with the goblins and those that were about to come. This was the first time that I got injured by an armed goblin, with a shallow cut on my chest. The shield goblin blocked my right and two warriors were continuously attacking, it was either a small cut on my chest or an arrow in my leg.

The 'exercise' kept on for hours and my concentration started to break. I killed the goblins when I failed to dodge an attack and it snowballed down to me almost an arm. Having done enough for today I went back to the tree and meditated.

There was a difference this time. Meditating somehow brought me above a pond, a transparent pond, from where I could observe each and every change in my body in minute detail. While meditating I had to clear my mind and take deep breaths, this time I had to focus on my breathing and how the mana that entered my body flowed.

The mana was like oxygen, it mixed with blood in my heart and moved to every part of my body. The tissues and bones absorbed every single minuscule of the mana and slowly strengthened my body.

Some part of it went to recovering the mana and stamina I had lost but once it got fully recovered the speed of infusing mana became twice as fast. I did not feel any change in me but it was surely happening, slowly but surely.

There was one more change though. After fully recovering a silhouette appeared in my find above the transparent pond. It scared me shitless as it raised its axes, but instead of attacking me, it started taking combat stances.

After watching it for some time I realized what was actually happening. It was the doing of my two masteries, teaching me as I meditated.

I ingrained each and every move of the silhouette in my mind as I continued to observe it. It was using both my masteries simultaneously with an axe in both hands. It used every piece of knowledge I learned from the skill, refined it down and demonstrated how I use the information.

The whole night passed by as I kept observing the projection.

The first thing I did when I woke up was to pick up my hatchets and trace out the movements and follow the image in my mind. I could now almost imagine a 'me' perfectly performing the moves, the thing left to do was let the imagined me and the real me fuse.

The actions became similar as time passed by but they wouldn't exactly match.

I stopped maybe it needed more time, some more observation of the silhouette or maybe something was missing but there was no progress for now. After a full day of training, I was finally going to check every skill level up now.

General Skills: Observe lvl 5, Mana Circulation lvl 15, Demon's Fighting Instincts lvl 16, Axe Mastery lvl 18, Dual wielding lvl 18

Fighting instincts by six, mana circulation by four and both masteries by eight. I was going to level each skill to the max possible number and only then fight the chief, if I fought him before the big upgrade that occurred yesterday I might've lost an arm.

If I fought him now, a standstill, and maybe I could win if the skills were maxed out.

There were no upgrades to my stats but if could dodge every attack and slowly whittle down his health through continuous attacks and there was a chance to win. I had no idea when the skills maxed out but it had to be nearby, the system won't let me level past fifteen so the skills had to be nearby, probably.