He frowned with concern when he noticed that his mana wasn’t recovering fast enough. The drop was very minor, a slow leak, but it was still dropping faster than he could recover it. He watched for a few moments but his frown only grew grimmer. Not much time… maybe a couple hours? This…
Joe dismissed his concern and focused on killing the horde as quickly as possible, only glancing at his mana every twenty or thirty minutes. The horde pressed on and Joe’s arrows launched out keeping them at bay, although the line shifted back and forth as he struggled to fire quickly enough to stop the line of monsters. About a half an hour later, he found his arrow bucket running a bit empty and shouted out to the other four in the back.
“Going to need a refill! Mind if I get another bucket up here?”
Joe didn’t stop his firing as the arrows in the current bucket were still easy enough to grasp, but he was down to his last dozen and didn’t want to wait too long.
Garnedell’s excited shout calmed him, “Coming, Joe!”
He smiled, returning his focus to the slaughter, the bucket swapped out without Joe even noticing, only his fumbling fingers grasping an arrow finding the bucket over full instead of the almost empty bucket previously. He took a second or two to glance down and taken in the layout of the arrows, fixing it in mind so he could more easily nock his bow with arrows before returning to feeding the slaughter with arrows.
Time slipped away, his mind distracted almost entirely by the desperate attempt to keep the monsters at bay and away from the wall. He went through bucket after bucket of arrows, each bucket some two hundred arrows, and grew just as concerned for his arrow supply as he was for his mana supply. He wasn’t sure how many arrows he had left, but his mana was down to his last ten percent. Joe glanced up at the sky, taking in the sun low on the horizon but then returned to his fight, his arrows flashing outward without stop. Well… this… isn’t good! They’re still coming and I’m about out of mana. And arrows… Joe stopped and glanced back, finding about ten or so bundles left. I’ve used almost two thirds… this… Joe sighed, concerned but there was little he could do so returned to his defense.
After another bundle, he found his mana empty, no longer able to fire his arrows so quickly. He now fired an arrow only after his mana refilled enough to imbue his arrowhead, which left him firing an arrow around once every ten seconds or so. It’s not enough. They’re getting too close! Joe grimaced, worry driving him and he looked at his mana pool, so empty. Joe growled, his mind casting around for any other options and suddenly noticed one of his mana points bobbing lazily around him. He blinked. Huh… would that? Can I? Growing a bit desperate even as the monsters closed the distance to his wall, Joe flipped out another arrow and this time sent a mana point into the arrow head. Right… I’ve only twenty shots with this… gotta have the points come back to me… can they go that far? Is… No time! Hope it gets back! Joe didn’t wait, simply investing the desire for the point to ride in the arrow then return to him after it hit the monster.
The arrow loosed, streaking through the air and this time the monsters seemed to react to it. Several of them froze, staring up at it, and the one he was aiming also took a moment to look at it before seeming to try to dodge it. The arrow was moving too fast, and buried itself into the chest of the monster. Its death was much more dramatic, even as it twisted up on itself and almost immediately died. Huh… guess it’s much more powerful? Makes a bit of sense… my points hold a lot more mana! Joe fired his next arrow using the system mana as it had recovered enough by this time, but didn’t really watch where he shot, only making sure it hit something as he was focused on watching for his returning mana point. As he began to worry, he saw it streak up to settle in front of him, bobbing slightly but seeming no worse for the wear. Huh… Joe took only a second to evaluate it even as he nocked his next arrow and settled another point into the arrow head. He released the arrow, and another monster shrieked and twisted into a fetal position before dying almost immediately once again. As before, several of the monsters in the line seemed to look at his arrows but concern seemed to have dropped a bit.
He didn’t really notice, however, as he was looking at the first point he sent out, probing it carefully. Despite his cautious investigation, he wasn’t able to really tell if anything was different at all, until he took a look at the mana levels and found that the mana point had lost a bit of mana. Huh… a bit less than I normally imbue into the arrowheads… are they more efficient or… Joe shook his head, physically representing his effort to clear his mind of distractions. He focused on sending out mana point arrows, although he did interject a normal sphere vortex mana arrow every two or three arrows depending on if his mana had recovered but then quit after a bit when he saw his mana points remained relatively full if he alternated through them although their mana levels still continued to dip, going down slowly over time. Joe sighed. Well… I’ve put off the time a bit… I’ve got maybe another couple hours now… but I’ll be drained… system mana and mana points! Joe knew he still had his own personal mana as well, but he was already struggling with simply emitting the mana that he had with the system and emitting his own mana itself was exhausting and draining on him. He feared he wouldn’t be able to aim correctly as although he was used to physical exhaustion, mana exhaustion proved to be a rather unique experience for him. He worried that he would be able to imbue an arrow without just wasting the mana into the air as the mana exhaustion distracted him and ruined his control.
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Not much I can do anyway… just… gotta keep it clear. Soon, the sun set, and torches and magical lighting constructs began to form over the fields, everything from rather bright lightning bugs and even… Wait… is that really a phoenix? Joe blinked in shock when he saw the fiery bird, a small thing about the size of a swallow, darting its way across the fields and back, leaving a strange trail of light behind it, almost like an afterglow of its flame burned into the fabric of space time which allowed the area to actually seem to glow without any obvious light source. Joe found himself distracted for a few moments trying to figure that out before returning to the monster tide.
Soon, the dying light of dusk and the massive variety of strobing lights left his sight squinting hard to see into the night. The flickering shadows played havoc with his depth perception and he struggled to hit only the front row of advancing monsters. The light and shadow played havoc, and soon Joe struggled to see what he was aiming for. As the shadows deepened with the dying light of the sun, Joe struggled, then turned his thoughts to attempting to find a solution as he wasn’t able to compensate well enough. He soon was simply slinging arrows into the mass of monsters hoping to make a dent while he turned his mind towards a solution.
His natural inclination was a natural solution, but even as his mind ran through how to solve issues with lighting, protecting eyes from blinding light sources, and back lighting, he blinked in surprise. Well… I’m dumb… He kept firing but then opened up his menu, flipping to his job skills listing and let his eyes scan the list of jobs. He quickly dismissed the top of his list, where basic life jobs were and dropped to the educational listing, but dismissed that almost as quickly.
He almost jumped all the way to the end, thinking combat jobs would be mightily useful when his eyes snagged on the glowing green of the partier line of jobs. Right! Maps and utilities! There was… Joe slid his eyes through the listing of skills, clearly remembering information related to mons… There! Monster guide!... uh.. the guide job! Change jo… uh… Joe swapped to his main status display. No! That… Joe kept himself moving, firing his arrows, even as he struggled to control his anger, frustration bubbling up inside of him even as he looked at the jobs he currently had equipped. His angry grunt, however, still slipped through. He sighed and then quickly flipped his exarch job to the third slot, freeing up the first two, dropping both the archbishop and abbot jobs. Wait… Joe saw that all three had leveled to forty, his anger a bit mollified and he quickly flipped over to the available jobs listing while nocking his next arrow. Ooh… Loki Primate… what’s… Joe quickly began the process of changing his job to primate before he froze, grimacing as he realized he’d almost screwed up. The Loki primate job would have been too low level to change out other jobs. He instead set his primary job as guide first, immediately using the monster guide skill.
Monster Guide!
Joe blinked, then grinned, laughing. Well… that wasn’t what I wanted… but it certainly was something needed! His laughter was quiet, but enough that those around him heard, and Garnedell spoke up.
“Is all well, Joe?”
Joe glanced back then returned to the fight, “Don’t worry, it’s fine.”
The monster guide actually turned out to be a listing of every monster… Nope…not every monster… Joe glanced at the table of contents, to find only a few dozen monsters listed. Huh… slimes… goblins… hobgoblin, goblin king… then snows, sparks… ratfoxes… Oh… OH! Everything I’ve been… Joe trailed off when he saw another listing suddenly appear on the list and Joe stopped for a moment, then looked out over the monsters in the tide. As his eyes scanned across the monster tide, he actually felt the monster guide seeming to flicker … struggle… Is it lagging? Really? That… As his eyes took on the various monsters, a new listing seemed to struggle to appear, and Joe took a moment to look carefully at a monster that was giving the monster guide a fit. He did so, and suddenly a new listing came up on the table of contents. Joe stared at it, then glanced out again and noticed the tide was surging forward once again, and he went back to launching arrows again. However, he returned his focus to the guide and selected the new monster that had just showed up. He found himself very disappointed. A simple image of the monster showed up and nothing more. That’s… rather… He stopped, and mentally went back to the table of contents and this time chose a slime. Joe’s smile grew. OK… much… that’s… ok… that’s cool.
An extensive information screen popped up with a name, description, and detailed information on possible information about the monster, including skills and a pretty narrow range for the attributes that seemed obvious to the slimes as well as an extensive series of images, some of which were more like videos. OK… this is going on my… Joe grimaced and returned focus back to the tide. Very cool… not the time. Not what I need now… Joe left the guide job where it was and added navigator to his other slot.
Monster Sense!