I started strolling from my tree, looking at my map once my Mana had again gone up to two. Watching my map, I was looking for something under 13lbs. Something like a rabbit would be acceptable to start. It wasn’t long before I found one. It was over a slight rise, so I got down on my hands and knees and started to crawl very slowly. Making as little noise as possible. I peeked around a tree and saw an animal resembling a cross between a rabbit and a beaver. Long ears but a thicker body and powerful-looking legs with large claws. Not something I wanted to mess with. I used Analyze on it, and the following came up.
Race: Hatmar
Level 3
Strongest Stat: Strength (Speed) 2
Edible
Not bad. I focused about 10 feet above the Hatmar’s head and opened my Inventory. I selected my rock. It fell right on the Hatmar’s head and killed it! I ran over with my knife to make sure, but just like I had been taught, a deadfall trap would kill if it was three times the weight of the target animal. Deadfalls were illegal in my home country, so I had never used one, but this had worked great! I decided to gut the animal and cook it here so that anything drawn in by smell wouldn’t come to my camp. When I touched it, I was surprised when lettering popped up.
You have defeated Level 3 HATMAR. Do you wish to absorb EXP?
Yes. No.
No skill points this time, huh? That makes sense. The Orc probably had a few skills at level 15, while this was only a level 3 animal.
I selected yes.
With my little rock knife, it took a while. The little guy probably got me about 4-5 lbs of meat by gutting, skinning, and cooking. I’m sure it was 10 to 13 lbs whole, so this seemed like a fair amount. This was the upper limit using my current rock, but I had plans now. I just needed a heavier rock! After eating a couple pounds of meat, I put the rest in my Inventory in 1lb amounts. I wanted to see if it was time-locked and wouldn’t spoil. I planned on leaving 1lb in there for a long time to see what happened.
Wiping off my hands on some grass, I walked back to my tree and brook, where I finished wiping off the blood and other things I couldn’t get off with the grass. I made another gouge in the grass at my time dial and climbed my tree. By this point, it was apparent we were way past noon, so I figured I would stop adding to the time dial today and pick it up again tomorrow morning. I had been so excited to try out my deadfall idea I hadn’t put my Exp anywhere. I opened up my status page.
Name: Jake Smithson
Race: Human
Level 1 (202%)
Age 25 plus 12 years 2 months 29 days
Main Categories (Select to see subcategories)
Wisdom 5
Intellect 9
Strength 7
Constitution 6
Agility 6
Will 10
Charisma 8
You have reached enough experience to level up. Level up 2 levels now?
Yes. No.
Two things stood out to me. One was that I had gotten enough to level me up two levels. That little Hatmar had given me just enough. I guess I wasn’t expecting that because of its size. Maybe it was because it was a higher level than me that I still got points? The other was that my age looked weird. It had also changed from before. With so much going on, I hadn’t focused on it previously, but hadn’t it said 3 months? Also, I should be 39 and a couple months, not 37. Did my age go down? What is going on here? I remembered something from the tutorial letter and went back to it. Life Essence. I had gotten some from the Orc and probably a little from the Hatmar. I had just lost 2 years! What happened when I got down to optimal? I assume that is what the 25 meant. This was just too crazy to think about, so I put it aside for now.
I checked my map for big animals and chose yes for my leveling up and about peed myself. I glowed! Why am I glowing? What is this? It was like I was bathed in a soft white light. I shouldn’t do this when hiding, that’s for sure. It felt amazing, though. I was sure I could run a few miles with all this energy. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it before sleep?
YOU HAVE 4 EXP POINTS TO ASSIGN. ASSIGN NOW?
Yes. No.
I chose yes, selected 2 points to go into wisdom, and then looked up the subcategory to see what happened.
(Mana 4, Mana Control 1, Knowledge 1, Mana Regen 1/10min)
Huh… why did it only go into Mana. I was happy to have more Mana, but I thought Mana would get one, and one would go to a different one. Hmmm. Could I put it directly in a subcategory? I selected Mana Control and was able to increase 1 point there. If I just put it into a main category, it would assign them based on something. Maybe my race… age… talent? I had one point left to assign. Now, I needed to look at subcategories. I decided I wouldn’t let something else decide where things went. This was MY body. I would train it up the way I wanted.
Wisdom 8 (Mana 4, Mana Control 2, Knowledge 1, Mana Regen 1/10min)
Intellect 9 (memorization 3, recall 3, Speed of thought 3)
Strength 7 (Attack 3, speed 2, endurance 2)
Constitution 6 (Resist Poisons 0, Vitality 4, Protection 2)
Agility 6 (control of movement 3, balance 2, learning new skills 1)
Will 10 (Discipline 4, Ability to overcome adversity 2, desire to win 3, resistance to charm or intimidate 1)
Charisma 8 (Good Looks 2, Luck 2, Communication 1, negotiations 1, leadership 2)
Where to put my last point was a real problem. I felt like it should be something that helped me survive. Leadership wasn’t beneficial right now. I also felt like I should put it in something low as it was a weakness. With Analyze, I didn’t feel poisons were a big deal. I narrowed it down to 3. Speed, Endurance, and Luck. They were all two, and each did something else for me. I further ruled out Speed because I had Time Slow and Time Stop with 4 mana. I didn’t plan on going far from my little hideout for a bit. Would Luck be a good option? I wish I knew what exactly it did. Did it just skew statistics in my favor? Would an Orc slip on a banana peel the next time I fought it? How vital was Luck? I had to say, though, I felt like my Luck was horrible. I got picked to be dragged here. Plopped down right in front of an Orc. No civilization anywhere I knew of. If I needed more of anything, it was Luck. I decided to put the next one into Speed and endurance, but today, my Luck got a boost!
Charisma 9 (Good Looks 2, Luck 3, Communication 1, negotiations 1, leadership 2)
Prep for night
I had some things to do before twilight when predators would be most active, so I closed my status and brought up my map. Nothing significant was on it, so I closed it and climbed down from my tree. First, I went to the brook, took my little bark bowl, and scooped up some water. Then, I Analyzed it.
Water
Clean and Potable
Yes! I took a drink and scooped up some more. I kept checking it and drinking, but it kept coming up clean. Then I started dumping it into my Inventory until I had a couple of gallons. Then I also stored my bowel in there. Next, I got as many dry leaves as possible and dry twigs. I spread these all around the base of my tree. It was the best early warning system I could do right now.
Finishing that, I went for a walk, looking for something identifiable. I figured if I was out, I could Instatravel to my tree, but what if I got trapped in my tree. The forest all looked the same, and I needed somewhere I could envision to travel to. After walking about a half mile, I found it. A tree was growing out of a clump of rocks. There weren’t many rocks around, so this would be my jump spot.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
It was time to go back, so I pulled up my map, and before I started walking, I noticed several Hatmar listed on my map. What now? Before, it just said animal and gave a basic shape. This was the first time it had listed what the animal was. What was going on here? Did it name it because I knew what it was now, thanks to Analyze? I needed to start using that more and level it up. Who knows what kind of information I would see on my map. I tried zooming in on one of the Hatmar, and sure enough, it gave me more information.
Race: Hatmar
Level 4
Strongest Stat: Strength (Speed) 4
Edible
This was great. Its Speed was even listed. It was nearly double the first one I saw! ‘Must be that extra level,’ I said to myself. Its Exp points must have been added to its Speed. I wonder if that is a racial trait thing. I zoomed back out and looked around again. That’s when I noticed something big come onto the map. I zoomed in on it.
Race: Orc
Level 18
Strongest Stat: Strength (Attack) 17
Edible
Ok, first… eww. I didn’t want to eat that thing. I would have to be really hungry. Second 17? I really would have been dead if it had hit me. I was in trouble again. It was headed towards me.
Round two
Ok, what am I going to do about this? Two options: run and hide or hunt. The smart money was on run-and-hide. On the flip side, if this thing was just one of many that would come this way, I needed to get stronger quickly. As I was pondering this, I looked down and smiled. I realized this was probably my luck stat paying me back already.
10 minutes later, the Orc came into view. It was walking and then suddenly started sniffing the air. It slowly made its way to the tree’s base with the rocks at the bottom. There, it found a piece of Hatmar meat. It was still warm from being cooked. It stopped, looked around, and reached down to grab it, which is when a 34-inch round 900lb rock crashed down on it, almost directly into the place I had taken it from. Death was immediate.
I checked my map again and then crawled down from a tree several trees over. I walked up to the Orc and touched it.
You have defeated Level 18 ORC. Do you wish to absorb EXP and Skill points?
Yes. No.
This time, I brought up my status page first to see what happened and selected yes.
Name: Jake Smithson
Race: Human
Level 3 (212%)
Age 25 plus 12 years 1 months 15 days
Main Categories (Select to see subcategories)
Wisdom 8
Intellect 9
Strength 7
Constitution 6
Agility 6
Will 10
Charisma 8
You have reached enough experience to level up. Level up 2 levels now?
Yes. No.
You have 3 skill points.
Assign skill points now?
Yes. No.
I switched to the map and started to walk away. The corpse of the Orc didn’t even appear on my map once I got far enough away that only living things were shown. It was picking up either Life Essence, Mana, or something from the living things around me. My map still depicted the basic geography since I had been there, but there was no Orc shown on my map.
I realized I had forgotten something and returned to the Orc and the tree. I opened my Inventory’s hole, touching the rock like before, and it was pulled in again. Didn’t know when another Orc would be coming along. Next, I got a couple poles, made a basic stretcher, and tried to get the Orc on it. I didn’t want this thing stinking up my home, which was only half a mile away. I also wanted to use this spot for my escape, and if there was a corpse here, it would likely bring predators to my escape point. Not the smartest. It was tough to even roll the Orc over onto the branches.
Dragging it was murder. I considered leveling up and putting my Exp points into Attack. I stopped myself, though. I couldn’t be lazy about this. Tools and Strategy, I told myself. What did I have? That’s when it hit me. This thing was dead now. Could it fit in my Inventory? I opened the hole, touching it like I did the boulder, and sure enough, it was sucked in. How much could I fit in there, I wondered…. I returned to the rocks around the tree and started trying to put them in. Only two more small ones could be crammed in before I was told.
YOUR INVENTORY IS FULL.
I bet I would need to level something up to make it bigger. I would have to read how later. For now, I just walked a few miles away while watching my map. I dumped the body out of my Inventory there and started walking back.
When I got a little under a mile from my tree, I tried my Instatravel Skill. I didn’t want to have to say Instatravel each time, though, so I paid attention to my Mana when I thought of my nest and said Instatravel. The Mana moved differently this time. It swirled in my gut instead of moving down my arm, and suddenly I was there! I checked my map and then laid down again. This was awesome!
I decided not to level up yet. I had a feeling that leveling up would change how much Exp I got. I was much closer in level to that Hatmar and hadn’t gotten much Exp. It would take some experimenting to determine the formula for gain Exp. I noted how much I gained from the first Orc, then for the Hatmar, and then the higher level Orc again when I was level 3. It would take some time, but I figured I could figure it out with enough information. Whatever it was, though, I knew I was getting much more than most, so I couldn’t complain. I did want to optimize, though, and I would prefer to use my Tools and Strategy for now rather than try to raise my stats to match that beast. That seemed like the dumbest way to go about this.
I could use my skill points without changing my level. I had gotten three again. This time, I didn’t have a hard and fast thing I wanted to use them for, so I went back to the skills page. Many of them I didn’t know what they did. Limit Breaker Skill sounded cool, but I had no idea what it did. Did it let me double my stats for a short period or something? Who knew…? I couldn’t risk my precious skills points on that yet. Maybe later. There wasn’t a healing skill that I could find. I had plenty of water right now, so Water magic didn’t seem necessary. I had been thinking I could start to grow some edible plants, though, and a couple looked good for that. One was Earth Magic. That probably would help, and I had other things I could use it for. There was also a Farming skill. I also wanted to raise my Mana Manipulation skill, but I didn’t want to do that until I tried to increase it through my efforts. I bet the first couple of levels were easy to raise for most things and harder later. Dang it, this was harder than it should be. I had Magic for crying out loud! I should be jumping at the skills instead of biting my nails and trying to figure out what would help me the most.
I stopped and did a quick self-check and realized what was wrong. Too much had happened today. Yanked out of my world, fighting Orcs, trying to figure out the system, building my camp. I had done enough today. The stress was getting to me and making me indecisive. I needed rest. It would all look better in the morning. Just the thought of sleep relaxed me. I was already lying down, so I closed my eyes and meditated. Instead of focusing on my breathing like I had been taught, I focused on my Mana. I started to move it around my body. It would travel in the pathways I had found before, but it would also travel in others. I didn’t know what they did, but I just focused on moving the Mana wherever it would. I was doing this for a while before I finally fell asleep.