After about an hour of hobbling through the woods I sit down against a tree to take a break. I’ve made decent distance from the last place those assholes were trying to kill me. I’m fairly sure I’ve lost them for now.
Health: 642/650
Mana: 2958/2958
Stamina: 663/663
******************************************************************************
Exhaustion: 10:49
Well the good news is that this effect is almost gone, and most of my stats are full again too. The mountain is a bit closer, but still probably a few hours of running, which I'll hopefully be doing once my legs stop hurting like hell. Now seems like a good time to check out some of those spells I’ve been ignoring.
General skills:
* Universal Communication – Level: 1 (Max)
* Blend – Level: 10 (Max)
* Plant Forming – Level: 1(+)
* Mobile Podding – Level: 4(+)
Class Skills:
* Spell List-Life Magic:
* Weak Heal - Level: 2
* Weak Regeneration - Level: 1
* Weak Cleanse Disease - Level: 1
* Weak Cleanse Poison - Level: 1
* Weak Body Reinforcement - Level: 1
* Weak Body Enhancement - Level: 1
* Weak Body Focusing - Level: 1
* Spell List-Light Magic:
* Weak Shield - Level: 1
* Weak Bull’s Strength - Level: 1
* Weak Cat’s Agility - Level: 1
* Weak Bear’s Endurance - Level: 1
* Weak Fei’s Magic - Level: 1
* Weak Dragon’s Fortitude - Level: 1
* Weak Cleanse Curse - Level: 1
* Triage
* Inspire Courage
* Free Casting
Lets see, I have 21 points left over and none of these fuckers have descriptions. Well I guess the names are good enough description. I highly doubt that bull’s strength is going to increase my magic stat. But what do the body spells do? I’m hesitant to cast something on myself I don’t know the effects of, but I don’t exactly have any guinea pigs. Something tells me I won’t be able to figure it out otherwise. I mean they sound like improvement so it can’t go wrong right? Honestly I’ll take any boon I can get, I’m going to need it. I brace myself and pick a spell to try out, let's go with body reinforcement, can’t go wrong with being able to take extra punishment at this point. I select the spell and hold my right hand out, once I choose to cast it I feel a fair bit of mana start to get pulled up my arm and culminate in my hand. After a few moments I’m left with a little green ball in my hand, it hovers about half an inch above my palm. Moving my fingers causes the ball to move as well, it always stays close to the palm but never touches.
Interesting, I wonder if it will touch others? Not like I can test it, nor would I want to since anyone I could cast it on would probably want to kill me. I try closing my hand into a fist, bringing all fingers down on the little ball at once and leaving it nowhere to go. Inevitably it gets crushed in my hand and disappears as I feel a surge of energy run through me. I feel slightly better, not much but definitely improved. I check my stats to see what changes have occurred.
Health: 642/650 (784)
Mana: 1958/2598 (3248)
Stamina: 663/663 (728)
******************************************************************************
Strength: 66 (+)
Agility: 26 (+)
Endurance: 51 (+5) (+)
Magic: 116 (+)
Fortitude: 51 (+5) (+)
******************************************************************************
Exhaustion: 10:05
Weak Body Reinforcement: 4319: 58
Hot damn that's some impressive bonuses. I’m guessing the new plus fives by some of my stats indicates bonuses and the numbers in parenthesis means new pool cap. Hell, now I feel stupid for not trying my buff spells. I don’t know if any of this will help much against the ax wielding lizard with anger issues though. Still, three whole fucking days to, at least I think that’s three days. The price is a bit steep at about a thousand mana per cast but for boosts like that for that long I’ll eat it without complaint. Plus the spell is still level one, I don’t know how it will change with more points dumped into it but I can’t get worse right? Alright I think I’ll cast another one of those body spells, let's go with body enhancement this time. I hold my arm and repeat the process, this time casting enhancement on myself instead of reinforcement.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Health: 642/650 (784)
Mana: 959/2598 (3248)
Stamina: 664/663 (868)
******************************************************************************
Strength: 66 (+5) (+)
Agility: 26 (+5) (+)
Endurance: 51 (+5) (+)
Magic: 116 (+)
Fortitude: 51 (+5) (+)
******************************************************************************
Exhaustion: 9:55
Weak Body Reinforcement: 4319: 50
Weak Body Enhancement: 4319: 59
Well not as impressive on my stats, probably because it did strength and agility and didn’t touch endurance. Still probably means running faster, lifting more, and going longer without being tired out. Still three days and a thousand mana, still sounds like a good deal to me. As much as I’d like to keep playing wizard I need to keep moving. The longer I stay here the closer they get to catching me. If I’m lucky I won’t ever see any of them again and can live happily ever after in my own little corner of existence with no one else to bother me. But I’m not that lucky, these fucks want to hunt me to the ends of the existence it seems like, so I’ll at least give them a hell of a chase.
I push off the tree, getting back to my feet as my legs complain about being sore. It’s not as bad as before but still means that I’m not going to be running anywhere. Now I can at least manage a decent walk as I continue my trek towards the mountains. As I walk I remember how my stats also changed while using my blend skill but that time it didn’t reduce my stats and what not. I wonder why? Maybe it’s how blend works, division based instead of adding or subtracting? No, that doesn’t make sense either. Oh wait, blend just makes me seem like a different creature, not actually changing me. I wonder if the stats drop as a way to assist with the disguise or something? Ah well, all I can do is guess unfortunately. Maybe if I ever get settled down I can try to devise methods to figure all this shit out, but for now I just need to make it over those mountains.
I look back over my shoulder, through the gaps in the trees I can see the airship floating about far off in the distance. It looks like it’s floating over the direction I would have been if I had run straight after the river incident, good thing I zagged towards the mountains. Right as I am about to look forward I see a glint start to shine off the airship. I squint my eyes trying to get a better look and see something fly off the ship towards the ground so fast I almost miss it. A few seconds later a loud boom echoes through the forest. Yea, happy I didn’t go that way. Pretty obvious they are starting to just blast shit. A turn back and keep walking, only to hear several more successive booms in the distance. Seriously no chill at all on those guys, you’d think I pissed on one of their gods graves or something, oh well. Let them waste ammo, I’m going way the fuck away from there.
I continue on my way towards the mountain unopposed for now, the occasional set of booms echoing in the distance. Eventually my exhaustion effect wears off and I start to feel better. I'm not up for dead sprinting through the forest again but a nice jog is within my realm of possibilities so I start jogging. It’s actually kind of relaxing jogging through the forest like this. Unfortunately my peace is cut short by the sound of more explosions. This time they sound a lot closer and I can feel the shock wave, faint as it may be. Don’t tell me they are going to literally level the whole forest trying to kill me. Another explosion rings out as if to answer my question. I pick up my pace, no way in hell am I gonna be caught around here, because they would probably eviscerate my ass in a heartbeat. Speaking of picking up the pace, I still have a few more buffs to test out from the light spell list, well no time quite like being hunted by crazy people with an ecosystem leveling airship to test out your other spells right? I flip over to my light spell list, let me see here. Seems like endurance would do me a lot of good right now since it seems to bump everything, so I think I’ll go with bear endurance for this test.
I stop my run and hold out my hand, I’m not going to try casting spells on the go yet, might complicate things. I choose to cast the spell and once again a ball forms in my hand, except this time it’s white. I close my hand around it and feel the surge of energy once again. Now lets see how we are doing in the stats department.
Health: 642/650 (994)
Mana: 959/2598 (4118)
Stamina: 664/663 (923)
******************************************************************************
Weak Body Reinforcement: 4319: 45
Weak Body Enhancement: 4319: 54
Weak Bear's Endurance: 14:58
Well, another nice improvement. Cost me three hundred mana and only boosted endurance, but fifteen points is a big boost. Unfortunately it looks like it only lasts fifteen minutes. Thankfully it looks like it also stacks with the body spells. Now the question is do I want to invest points into these spells? I think the body spells would be a good investment right now, they last for a long time, and have a way better mana to time ratio than the light spells. Plant forming and mobile podding are also really good contenders though. Especially mobile podding, I get the feeling being able to pick up and set down faster is going to be a life saver in the long run. Well I got a while to think about it, not like the points have a time limit on them.
I go back to heading towards the mountain, this time setting my pace to more of a run than a jog. More explosions echo off in the distance, slowly creeping their way closer. Hopefully I'll be over the mountain by the time they finish clearing the forest.