Though Caspian found both of the descriptions of his new skills rather … vague he did find the achievements he had gotten rather helpful.
Achievement: Hearty
* Lose 10% of your health without dying
* Heal slightly quicker in the future
* Take slightly less damage in the future
* Notice slightly more in your general vicinity
Achievement: Tough
* Lose 25% of your health without dying
* Heal quicker in the future
* Take less damage in the future
* Notice more in your general vicinity
And so on until
Acheivment: Death Wish
* Lose 99% of your health without dying
* Heal vastly quicker in the future
* Take vastly less damage in the future
* Notice vastly more in your general vicinity
Along with
Achievement: Natural Healing
* Heal 10% of your health without an outside healing source
* Heal slightly quicker naturally in the future
* Resist slightly anything that tries to deteriorate your natural state
Achievement: Natural Recovery
* Heal 50% of your health without an outside healing source
* Heal far quicker naturally in the future
* Resist anything that tries to deteriorate your natural state
And so on until
Achievement: Natural Bastion
* Heal 99% of your health without an outside healing source
* Recover health quicker the lower your health drops
* Convert attacks against your perceived natural body into healing depending on the willpower of the Ascendant
Caspian was realizing some things. One was that the closer he got to his limits the greater the rewards, and that skills and achievements not only could be affected by each other but very clearly worked together to make you more powerful just look at his new Natural Bastion and Brawlers Resolve. He could now quite literally heal himself with belief and more specifically the belief he shouldn't be hurt by something. That sounded pretty freaking OP to him.
Caspian, now full of excitement began running down the seemingly endless tunnel. With all his boosts his vision was … strange. He couldn't see his way down the tunnel. He could however feel it. His vision went dark after about 30 feet down the tunnel but he could tell the path was clear far past that and quite suddenly that it wasn’t. At about 60 feet he could tell there was a weak beast. Caspian couldn't tell whether it was another boar or something else but whatever it was he knew it to be weak. As he got within eye line he was able to see its stats. Six Tusk Boar: Hard. Hard? Was it that crazy it had 2 more tusks? Then he mentally pulled up his stats and saw the likely reason his health was still around a quarter. Shouldn't he be healing crazy quick wasn't that what all those achievements were about? As soon as he consciously thought about it he felt his stomach settle, his chest tighten, and his muscles … grow. He quite literally grew 2 inches these new abilities were incredible. Looking over his body he could see his slim and almost ghostly frame had filled out slightly not a ton but he certainly felt stronger, more agile, also his fists felt more … durable. Looking back at the boar now that he was back to full the stat panel had changed Six Tusk Boar: Medium. Well, medium was better than hard so what else to do but punch it. He wound up pulling his fist back as he slowly approached and punched forward destroying a small section of the floor but missing the boar who had loudly squealed and jumped aside. The boar landed and rocketed forward all 6 tusks seemingly bending in real time to point forward as the large boar slammed into him. Caspian felt his ribs crack and his arm bend the wrong way. Flailing his arm he swatted the boar away slightly avoiding the rest of the bulk of the animal. This fight might be harder than he thought. With careful concentration on what his chest normally felt like he was able to redirect some of his now bleeding arm damage into healing his chest but only about a fifth of the damage he had taken total.
“Alrighty porker your tougher and my skills are not that of some cosmic hero”
Retreating back to a safe distance Caspian took a long moment to focus on how his body should feel. The healing certainly seemed faster while out of combat which made sense also his undivided attention made a hell of a difference.
Ding
You have earned a new Skill!
New Skill: Concentration
Concentration:
* You are your will
* Focus on a specific concept to push more energy into it
“Alright so it's not just a matter of doing stuff I gotta think about why it happens, should have assumed that”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Sitting down allowed him to use his mostly untested senses to roam over his body he focused in on each of his previously injured body parts then over his body dividing it into general areas then into quadrants then further overalayed all those anatomy and physiology diagrams he used for classes over his body.
Ding
You have improved a Skill!
New Skill: Concentration - Meditation - Physician Meditation
* You know what you are and your will empowers it
* Focus on a concept to push more energy into it
* Bonus to physical uses of the skill
* Increased effect of all body advancement skills heightened if the skill is used while in a state of meditation
Not only had he just gained an advanced version of a skill but he had skipped a whole level of the skill almost immediately. Clearly, prior knowledge carried over and affected the growth of his new skills.
The boar having slowly wandered over suddenly seemed to notice him again and rushed at him. Without opening his eyes depending solely on his instinctual skills he punched and felt a soft squelch as his had passed entirely through the beast.
You have killed a: Six Tusk Boar
XP earned
Bonus XP earned for fighting solo
Bonus XP earned due to Path
Bonus XP earned towards Ascension
You are level 7
“Alright sooo mediating while fighting makes me godly”
He hadn't gotten even a scratch with that cray display. Keeping his eyes closed he tried feeling for the corpse then mentally affirming he wanted to loot it and heard a pile of resources settle onto the ground. It was now that Caspian remembered he had completely forgotten his last loot pile though it had been in a pool of dried bloody vomit by the end so on second thought it was probably good not to have tried to carry it. Looking at his new loot pile he saw something very very very interesting. Not only were there various types of meat preparation but also an eyeball and a simple ring sitting atop the boar leather mat.
Item: Boars Eye
* Edible
* Slightly increases bestial senses
* Usable in various potions and concoctions
Item: Basic Traveler Ring
* Highly durable
* Does not affect physical attacks
* Does not cause encumbrance
* Does not count as a weapon
* Carries a rucksack worth of materials
“Heck yeah, it is a storage item I got a storage item. Suppose a rucksack isn't a whole lot of room though”
Storing his new loot into the ring was pretty self-explanatory he just touched it and thought about the item fitting into a bag and poof it disappeared.
“Guess it's time to do a bit more leveling.”
Continuing Caspian found and fought roughly 3 more Four Tusk Boars, and 2 Six Tusk variants. They gave less experience on subsequent kills it seemed. He raised the last Six Tusk to a medium difficulty by purposefully letting it reinjure his left arm. This seemed to give quite a bit of extra experience but time would tell if the strategy was a good one or not.
You have killed a: Six Tusk Boar x2
You have killed a: Four Tusk Boar x3
XP earned
Bonus XP earned for fighting solo
Bonus XP earned due to Path
Bonus XP earned towards Ascension
You are level 9
As Caspian progressed and felt his body further strengthen he could tell his fists were becoming more and more dense making punches with them far more effective. It would negatively affect his future agility if he decided to use a weapon luckily that seemed less and less likely and he was starting to like the full fist damage self-heal thing he was getting going. With each level up the lack of a subclass and blessing was beginning to bother him but maybe they were ultra rare or super specific also who or what was the blessing a blessing from was it like a charm or like some divine might? Waiting didn’t seem like a problem so far and if he got stronger he felt he may have more or at least more advanced choices which was never a bad thing. He was also getting far better at concentrating on his body both the separate aspects but also how it moved and how his muscles felt.
Physician Mediation Lvl 5
Brawler’s Resolve Lvl 7
Not too much of a surprise based on how the skills worked but Caspian did not love the fact that his most interesting-sounding skill Disciple of Entropy had not leveled at all. Perhaps better understanding was needed he couldn't carry all the loot from the last couple of boars and had it in a pile just sitting there slowly spoiling or it should be. Meat went bad if left out but this meat was just sitting there. Kicking the pile he watched one of the sausages roll from the mat onto the floor and almost immediately turned slightly greyish green. Focusing on it the description had changed
Item: Boar meat sausage (Small) (Spoiled)
* Hearty boar meat
* Slightly spoil reducing internal energy the longer it remains uneaten
“Alright, so the meat goes bad if I don't store it right. Pretty self-explanatory that one Caspian even the meat is a little magic”
Something interesting there because it loses magic to the ambient environment which the mat somehow stops from happening until it's removed. Focusing on the sausage off the mat versus the ones on the mat Caspian felt he could feel a difference beyond just the color or what his status window would tell him. He could feel the energy leaving it. He could feel it being drawn to him like the thin smoke trail from incense.