He woke with a start, still feeling strung out. Passing out was no replacement for sleep, so he crawled into the grassy bed he normally slept on, and fell deep into a dreamless rest.
When he woke to the crystals around his cave brightening, he felt centered yet weary. He wasn’t tired physically, as he had just woken up, but mentally. He was strained to the limit in a way he’d never been before.
Sighing, he began his morning routine by taking a sip of water and checking on the plants. It was relaxing in a way, loosening the mud for some plants and ensuring the pools of water remained for others. He took his time to study their conditions rather than breezing through.
He had decided to plant two of the glowfruit seeds and two of the rubbergum seeds. While he did not intend to keep them in the cave, having them as saplings and transferring them somewhere else would be much faster than having them grow from the beginning. He didn’t worry about shocking their root systems after replanting them either, as plants in this world were much sturdier.
He contemplated on the stalks used in his floating lilies. They were hard, harder than the stone around him, and would be very useful for tools if he ever decided to cut them down.
When checking on his firmroot grass, he thought it would be nice to try and eat one of them. Uprooting it was difficult, as it took all the mud with it, but he succeeded and washed it off slowly, taking his time to get all the mud and grime out.
When it was cleaned four times over, he found that he wasn’t really sure what to eat. The entire plant? Or just the roots?
He decided on just roots for now and ate the whole root system in a single bite. He felt a warm sensation flowing through him and over his skin. It felt like when he would eat vegetables back on Earth and feel healthy for a time afterwards, but now the feeling was more than placebo. This firmroot grass was actually making him healthier and rejuvenating HP. Chewing it slowly, really savoring the taste, it took him minutes to get it down. As for what it actually tasted like?
It tasted like shit.
The thought made him smile, and the smile tore something down in his mind. He felt tears welling up in his eyes as racking sobs overtook him, and he broke down crying.
Yesterday hadn’t been his first near-death experience in this world, but it was the most personal. The panic he felt while running for his life was visceral in a way he never could’ve imagined. The sound of air swishing behind him as he dove for the ground, then the wall to his right exploding. It replayed, over and over again in his mind.
More than fear, an indignation began to well up in his mind. He hated that he was forced to run away. He felt incomplete, like he had betrayed a core part of himself, yet he didn’t know why. Dei had never been in a life or death situation, why would his pride take such a hit just from running?
He didn’t know, but cold rage flowed through him. It wasn’t some explosive wave of anger that produced hundreds of Wrath mana, but a quiet seething that constantly hummed in the back of his mind, urging him to go back out there and tear that stupid fucking frog to pieces.
Luckily, it was easy to keep it under control, his [Pandora’s Box] absorbing the mana before it could feed into his anger and take his reasoning from him.
Slowly, the feelings of anger and fear faded, and his crying slowed to only sniffles. He felt a lot better, the act of checking his plants and crying having weirdly prepared him for the day. The new lightness he felt gave him a clear enough mind to start being productive, first by checking his notifications.
They closed themselves the moment he started running, to understandably not distract him.
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (4) -> (5)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (8) -> (9)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (5) -> (6)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (11) -> (12)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (12) -> (13)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (13) -> (14)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (9) -> (10)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (14) -> (15)]
This all but confirmed that danger played a role in accelerating the rate at which he and his Skills leveled up. He suspected he would need to leave the Garden eventually, or the levels would come so slowly it would seem like they weren’t coming at all.
Speaking of, he needed to check something. He was angry at himself for running and the frog for attacking him in the first place. He felt a sort of… obsession, an obsession to see his enemy. To keep eyes on him.
He slowly made his way through the crevice, to the edge of the barrier that protected him from the harsh outer world. Taking a deep breath, he placed one foot outside of the barrier and felt it all open before him.
‘Show me the frog that attacked me yesterday’ he asked of his [Fine-Tooth Comb] Skill, yet to his surprise he received no response.
He didn’t think the frog was dead, but he couldn’t be sure. Had it died the moment it absorbed his spiritual energy, popped like the mosquito? He knew the Soul mana he used in his [Astral Projection] was incredibly pure, as his other Skill concentrated it down from six mana into a single one. Was that too much for the frog? A creature he was sure had specialized into devouring spirits or spiritual energy? He didn’t believe so.
The other option was that the Skill didn’t have enough information to work on. When he focused on the cavern he was in before, he thought about how the details eluded him completely. It was vague, and he assumed his [Comb] Skill would be able to see more, but supposed that wasn’t true. The issue wasn’t that he couldn't properly sense the vibrations, just that they were too mixed for him to make out.
There were two ways for him to better differentiate the waves. One was to use [High Mind] in an attempt to sort through so many waves, but he was honestly scared to do so. It would be an intensive use of the already taxing Skill. If he did so, there was too high of a risk of soul damage for him to justify trying. The other option was one he’d been putting off doing for a long time… using both of his feet to scan his surroundings.
In order to do it, he would need to fully step out into the open. He could see that there were no predators around, but there was an unreasonable fear that the bubble of protection wouldn’t allow him back in. He hadn’t seen his mom do something special when moving through the cave to gain access, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking it might be permanent if he tried to leave.
Even if it might seem unreasonable that the magic would lock him out, he knew nothing about how it worked, and it was a genuine possibility. He would compromise instead. He would step out of the bubble, but keep one of his arms in. He already knew that he could pull his leg back through when he stuck it out, so he should be able to do the same with his arm.
Burying his hand in the stone to give himself a good grip to pull back with, in case it genuinely did try to repel him, he dramatically stepped down outside the barrier with his other foot.
He had to stabilize himself with the other hand on the stone wall as the influx of information sent waves of confusion through him. His mind was matured enough to handle it without pain, but it felt like an explosion went off in his brain, expanding his skull to unknown proportions.
The world opened before him, and it was beautiful.
While the range had not expanded by much, his ability to read the vibrations felt limitless. A hundred lives were made clear before him, nature undergoing an endless cycle of life and death. Predators stalked, prey survived, countless lives came and went every minute, yet there was balance to it all.
The manifold lives he saw did not take precedent though. He broke himself from his reverie and focused on the task at hand, scanning for his old enemy. This time, he did get a response back.
Deep under the bog, silently sleeping, his focus locked onto a specific figure he knew was the frog. If he did not have his [Fine-Tooth Comb] Skill, he would have most likely assumed it was a random boulder, but the few vibrations that penetrated its rocky skin revealed organs.
He continued watching it for a time, and it remained unmoving. Eventually, his fear of discovery overtook his desire to observe his foe, and he moved back into the barrier without trouble.
He felt mild satisfaction that the frog could not hide from him, but his seething anger at it was not yet satisfied. He needed to begin planning. He needed to kill it.
Even if he was not Leven, Levens thinking had stained Dei’s decision making. Dei was too peaceful, the Wrath affinity had said as much when he met with them. He was experimenting with his power slowly, learning and training in case he got into a fight. He was preparing to survive an encounter with stronger beasts, but that was the thinking of prey.
Dei needed to seek out fights. He needed to become stronger, faster. He couldn’t avoid all danger, as that would only feed into his weakness. He needed to plan out fights, picking the battles he knew he could win. He was a human for God's sake, he had to act like it. He wouldn’t run in to battles, hoping to win on prowess. That was the thinking of animals.
He would plot and plan, lead the enemies into his traps, and slaughter them with a combination of preparation and overwhelming force.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
It wouldn’t be easy, it was clear that monsters in this world were smarter than dumb brutes, but they couldn’t hold up to a thinking mind if he stretched his own out for the sake of survival.
He had to use his days more efficiently. He didn’t think he’d be ready to take on the frog by next month, but he would work his way up. He pulled up the notepad he wrote so many weeks ago.
“Fast tracks to power
* Class, might give me some combat abilities I think, not sure how, I only know that my class will “be how I fight.” However vague that is.
* Profession, similar to class, might give me something to help me survive, perhaps stats?
* Skills I had in my previous life. Not fully leveled up, can easily level up rapidly according to the System until they are back at their former power.
* Pandora’s Box (Unleashed). I can definitely do something with that. Its an unfinished spell so i can make it into something. Side note: I can already pull from Pandora’s Box using other skills, and I can easily open the box to let everything out. So what purpose does it serve? Maybe its a spell dedicated to using up all the mana at once in a controlled way? not sure.
* Racial bonuses and stuff. Specifically Camouflage. Maybe Digging? I already use Darkvision and Tremor Sense. Although i need to learn tremor sense better.
* NOT [Connection]. Not gonna experiment with that can of worms until way later.”
He would need more than these if he ever wanted to kill the frog. There were no combat Skills at all in his repertoire, so he mentally began to work on the issue of what he wanted a new Skill to look like. Until he had a better idea though, he would work on the tried and true options. He added a new section to this page in the notepad, a planner for his days.
“Day Planning:
* Wake up, drink water, check on plants, have breakfast.
* Observe the outside world, check on the frog and study its tendencies
* Meditate for two hours
* Work out for four hours
* Meditate for two hours
* Practice with camouflage for two hours
* Meditate for two hours
* Practice with High Mind and Fine-Tooth Comb until bed
* Think about how to make a new combat Skill throughout the entire day”
It was weird, but simple. He hoped to keep his mind stimulated enough to keep to it, but didn’t include time for “entertainment” as there was simply none to be had. He did find it slightly entertaining to mess with the bugs during his [Fine-Tooth Comb] training, but that was it.
No time like the present, Dei sat down and began to meditate.
* * *
[Since the Fall: 6/11/809 - 7:58:30]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (9) -> (10)]
[Stat Gained: +1 Physical]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (19) -> (20)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (20) -> (21)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (21) -> (22)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (22) -> (23)]
Two days passed since he gave himself a new training regime. He watched the frog every day, and it was only today that it began to move again. For some reason, it kept itself dormant for three days after attacking him, and he now believed it used that time to digest the mana it took from him.
A thought occurred to him somewhere during his training, that the Interface gave notifications when you killed something. He knew monsters had Interfaces too, based on the contract he got from Soul.
That meant the frog knew he was alive. It left him alone because it had taken all it could from him. More than that, he believed it wanted to “finish” him off later without wasting the mana in him, saving him like leftovers.
His anger continued to build every day, and he checked how much Wrath mana he had now.
[620/2000 Wrath
7/2000 Kindness
81/2000 Soul]
A little less than fifty Wrath mana produced in two days. It wasn’t going to overtake his Skill faster than it could contain it yet, but if the drip of mana didn’t stop soon, it would. Especially with how some space was being taken up by Soul mana.
It didn’t bother him though. He planned to use it, so he would save as much as he needed for the frog.
His [Growing Pains] Skill skyrocketed in levels, faster than his actual Physical stat. While he knew his old skills would grow quickly, it was amazing to see it in action now that he had a frame of reference.
His [Camouflage] practice barely bore fruit. It didn’t come as instinctually, and he needed to practice with it more. Right now, he could change his skin into a material without copying the texture. Only more time and practice would fix the issue.
* * *
[Since the Fall: 6/16/809 - 7:59:22]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (10) -> (11)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (11) -> (12)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (23) -> (24)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (32) -> (33)]
[Stat Gained: +1 Physical]
[Stat Gained: +1 Physical]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (15) -> (16)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (10) -> (11)]
[Pandora’s Box:
1012/2000 Wrath
7/2000 Kindness
205/2000 Soul]
A full week passed since the incident outside of his cave. He continued to observe the frog and its tendencies to wander around, picking its fights carefully. He was sure now that it had the Mind affinity rather than the Heart affinity, based on his guess that the mind was the logic of the soul while Heart was emotions. It used stuns on its enemies in key moments of battle and was weirdly intelligent for an animal. It never panicked when cornered, always managing to find a way out of fights it couldn’t win. He would have respected its drive, if he wasn’t going to kill it.
On top of that, he picked the target for his own fight he intended to have when he next used [Astral Projection]. There was a damp alcove a short distance away from him filled with life. It was about as wide as a basketball court, while being six stories tall. The room had vines all around it and those weird glowing crystals along with swarms of insects. His target was the only mammal in the cave and apex predator, a large flying rodent. They were very cute, and he was going to feel bad, but it was necessary.
He picked them as his target because stats worked as a multiplier, and he was probably the lowest level thing in the entire area. He needed to fight things with a low baseline, and little for the stats multiply.
He continued to grow larger though, increasing his own baseline for his stats to work with. It really was unnatural, he had grown nearly a foot in just the two months he’d been here. He didn’t know exactly how old he was, but he believed he wasn’t a year old and looked like he was three.
He would continue watching his growth carefully.
* * *
[Since the Fall: 7/9/809 - 7:57:57]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (12) -> (13)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (13) -> (14)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (33) -> (34)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (60) -> (61)]
[Stat Gained: +1 Physical]
…
[Total Stats Gained: +6 physical]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (16) -> (17)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (11) -> (12)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (12) -> (13)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (13) -> (14)]
[Pandora’s Box:
1334/2000 Wrath
7/2000 Kindness
636/2000 Soul]
One month had passed since he first left his cave as a projection. While his anger began to abate, his [Pandora’s Box] was already almost full. It was true that he needed to begin stretching it, so that wouldn’t be the worst, but he didn’t think it would be a good idea to lose his head in the situation he was in. He needed to stretch it using Soul mana, as he was realizing how difficult it was to earn Kindness mana. He only needed to earn 23 more mana to fill up his Skill, but that would change today when he used his Soul mana.
His Skills grew steadily, except [Growing Pains], which shot straight towards the cap of what it was before he died in his last life. It gave him hope that his [Pandora’s Box] would grow faster than his affinity mana could fill it, as the Skill was growing much, much faster than his Physical stat itself.
He was also finally able to use [High Mind] a single time for something non-intensive without it putting pressure on his soul. His presence had grown to be something sturdier, and he continued to fill the miscellaneous section he left open with random neutral memories from his past, such as the different animals he’d seen and the beautiful scenes he’d had the benefit of visiting in his previous life, such as the grand canyon.
It added a life to his Presence that he didn’t have before, without diminishing the Wrath, Kindness, and Parental aspects of it.
He was also able to Meditate and “work out” at the same time now, but only as planks. He still could not meditate while moving yet, but the extra workout added more to his regime.
He was yet to create a combat Skill either, but he went over his past, checking all the other times he created Skills on accident. It seemed there needed to be a spike in his emotions to create a new Skill, as well as a genuine reason. He couldn’t, with his affinities at least, sit patiently and create a Skill through willpower alone.
Everything was ready. His Skills were as high as he was going to get them for now, and his Physical stat was higher than last time, so he hoped that would translate over to his Projection like he thought it would.
He sat down in the center of the room not only ready for a fight, but looking for one this time.
He knew from last time that he could push through the barrier with his Projection, so he didn’t risk sticking a finger out this time. When he activated his [Astral Projection], he also pushed more mana into it than necessary, going all the way up to six hundred mana crammed into it, in order to make his projection more sturdy.
[Skill Leveled Up: Astral Projection (2) -> (3)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Astral Projection (3) -> (4)]
He felt overfull from doing so, but succeeded, knowing the description of his Skill had changed once again from “450 mana initial cost” to “450 minimum mana initial cost.”
His Identity split from the rest of his soul, pulling itself from his body and standing up. He glanced at his own face in a peaceful resting position, then turned around and pushed through the barrier into danger.
[Name: Dei Grrata
Race: Human (Spiritual)
Class: Prodigal Detector (Level 34)
Profession: Pondering Sage (Level 4)
Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All, Bearing the Burden, Slayer of Mountains
Contracts: Soul of the (IIIIIIII)
Soul Strength: 600/600
MP: 44/44
SP: 44/44
Stats:
Physical: 22
Mental: 27
Spiritual: 34
Magical: 28
Affinities:
Kindness: Mid-Rare, 57%
Wrath: Mid-Uncommon: 22%
Soul: Low-Uncommon: 58%
Inner Skills:
Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (50) (1377/2000), Call for Help (9), Good Samaritan (1)
Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Pains (61)
Soul: Astral Projection (4), Connection (1)
Mana: Meditation (14)
Confluence: Identify of the Stout Protector (5)
Outer Skills:
How About a Demonstration?, Fine-Tooth Comb (17), Vigilance (6), In Tune (1), Commune with the Universe (2), High Mind (14)]