Jeff was relieved to see that Kazi had turned off auto accept reward for completed quests. He was still catching his breath from the battle with the beetle and needed a moment before accepting the reward.

Kazi instinctively shrunk the ‘Quest Complete’ screen and moved it to the side. Jeff grabbed the heavy purple armor laying on the ground in from of him and collapsed taking in deep breaths. He glanced around to see the damage done. All he saw was a couple drops of his own blood that had started to dissolve into Myst and a completely mangled halberd. The weapon had dropped near where the monsters head had dissolved and lay there with a massive dent in its shaft.

Good timing, he thought as he focused again on the rewards for completing the trainee quest.

“Alight, Kazi, let’s see what the System will replace that with.”

The small screen showed that the reward was accepted and Jeff waited for the reward to materialize. He waited, but nothing happened.

“Uh, sorry, but you will have to return to the Pillar to accept this reward.” Kazi said apologetically.

Jeff laughed, he didn’t know what he was expecting. Of course he would need to go grab it from the golden goo. He collapsed onto his back laughing softly at himself. It was good to be alive. He felt a rush and a relief from the battle that he didn’t expect to feel. Was he becoming an adrenaline junky? Was that why he pushed himself out this far into the forest when the sky was darkening?

He really was acting dumb. His left arm was now badly damaged, though it didn’t seem broken. And he was several hours away from the System Pillar. At least his navigation skill would let him return on the same path with relative ease. It even helped him remember where the trees were so with his dexterity he’d be able to avoid roots just fine. If his spirit sense wasn’t still going haywire he would actually be just fine in the dark forest.

Maybe he could push himself to Level 7 on his way back?

No. No, that was pushing too hard, he reminded himself.

“We could maybe get you an ability to help you see in the dark for the trip back?” Kazi suggested.

That startled him. He kept thinking about his Mystical abilities in all the wrong ways. It wasn’t like a game where you had to wait till you hit certain thresholds until you gained a new ability. You could just build a new connection and gain the abilities you needed. Perhaps if he was pushing up against his Depths limits and already had three skills in each connection then he would run into that problem. For now though, he had magical solutions to his problems.

“Dark vision?” Jeff wondered. “I guess that would fit in as an ability for the Awareness connection…or even Survival. I’m not sure if I have any memories around seeing in the dark though. I’ve not really, you know…done that before.”

“That’s fair,” his spore said. “Increasing your attributes should help enough over time that it’s not worth making that ability a priority now.”

He caught his breath and sat up wincing a bit as his left arm throbbed. He went over to the halberd and checked the damage that was done. It was folded almost perfectly at the center. He made a quick decision to still use it until he made it back. He made an energy disc and lined it up just right before chopping down. The silver metal of the halberd cut seamlessly creating an oddly shaped hand axe with a spear head on the top and spike on the back. With a thought he also put the bottom end of the shaft into his rucksack. His rucksack was already full with the other six kills since lunch. Luckily, the shaft fit in through the mouth of one of the caterpillar heads that hung out the top.

He looked over at the spiky purple armor. He was glad he could wear it instead of trying to shove it into the already heavy rucksack. It was also large enough to fit over his leather armor so on it went. He adjusted it the best he could and checked his mobility. He didn’t love how thick it was. He was sure he would be protected from blows, but he also couldn’t bring his right arm all the way across his body for backhand Disc Throws. He didn’t have much options at the moment so he packed up and began heading back to the Pillar.

Jeff had been feeling more and more super human since arriving here. The walk back through the forest solidified that feeling. It was one thing to use magical abilities to help kill monsters. Most of his combat abilities were things he conjured or did outside of his body. However, doing something as mundane as walk through a forest and night helped him feel the distinctly super human. His arm was healing unnaturally fast. His steps were smooth and precise, despite carrying a decent amount of weight. And, with his 360 Vision and Navigation abilities, he felt he could maintain a fast paced jog through the dark forest with no problem. The only thing holding him back from doing so was his senses.

The trees spirits were growing increasingly more prominent in his sense field. He didn’t want to get ambushed again, especially in the dark, so he stayed at a fast hiking pace and kept his vision ability on a swivel. He checked his map to see how much farther he had to go. A little under 4 miles.

Before the System he had grown out of shape. He used to be a decent cross country runner, and he had just over a 5-kilometer run on the way back. He was tempted to make the run. Even while holding all his loot he wouldn’t be surprised if he could beat his old record of 19 minutes and 21 seconds.

Jeff felt and heard something fall about 20 yards away from him and he turned to see what it was. One of the three moons was up in the sky making the forest glow slightly blue. Still, he couldn’t quite see what it was with the canopy casting deep shadows over the forest floor. He flexed his spirit out that direction and noticed one of the spiritual acorns had fallen from a tree.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

He took a tentative step towards the fallen nut. It didn’t dissolve away like most leaves that came off the trees. As he reached out his spirit to it he could feel the nut drawing in alarming amounts of Myst toward it. He took one more step and then heard a thump from behind him. He whirled around to see an oddly gnarled acorn looking nut sitting in a patch of blue moonlight. He could faintly see trails of Myst as they were drawn into the little acorn. He stepped toward it and bent down to see if he could Forage it.

His Anticipate skill flared in his mind slowing down his world as the acorn split and a sharp vine struck out from the little nut. He had enough warning to bring his left arm across to chop the vine with the half halberd. He jumped back and readied himself for another attack. He felt his world slow again and his attention was brought to the nut that had dropped behind him. He lifted his right leg and brought it back down to stomp on the vine that was attacking. Thank goodness for his Anticipate ability.

He created an energy shield behind him and sliced it down into the vine. He kept his attention on the nut in front of him and stepped forward to attack it with his axe. Even with increased Dexterity it was hard to aim with his left hand at something so small and on the ground. Still, he managed to hit it just off of center. A screen popped up confirming the kill.

You have defeated:

Alianthose Sapling - Level 0

Reward Accepted

“Get that out of my face!” He yelled at Kazi. “I’m fighting here!”

The screen immediately disappeared and the nut seemed to shrink as the little bit of Myst it had drawn in was sent to him. He turned to the other sapling and created a disc to manipulate and finish it off. The plant sent one more feeble vine toward his shield, but he barely felt it’s force as it struck the shield. He split the saplings core and brought his glowing golden disc back to circle around him. He had practiced the motion enough now that he barely felt the spiritual and mental strain as it paced around him at waist level.

Then a sound like heavy rainfall met his ears and hundreds of sapling nuts fell from the trees around him and all throughout the surrounding forest. The noise continued on like the sound of popcorn. Once the first began to fall the rest followed. All around him Saplings began to reach out with their vines.

Stunned for only a moment he began slaying the monster saplings. With his disc manipulation he brought the disc low to the forest floor and began weed whacking the devilish acorns. A small tally box of kills appeared in the corner of his vision.

Jeff smiled. Kazi really knew what he was doing.

His Anticipation ability warned him of a striking vine coming from the side, fortunately it was going toward his new armor. He decided to let it strike him and instead chopped at another attack coming from his left toward his leg. He created another frisbee sized disc in his hand and used it as a weapon to attack an acorn that just fell near his leg.

He moved himself in to the patch of moonlight hoping it would help his vision and keep more saplings from falling too close. One vine shot out and rapped around his right arm. He pulled the sapling around and flung it into a nearby tree trunk. He couldn’t tell if the tally he got was from that kill or from his disc which he had moved low enough to circle around him grazing the forest floor and slicing through tiny monsters and vines.

He felt some mental strain has he manipulated the shield into position to do the same. He could only make both discs circle around him twice before the large shield disc winked out. It had cleared out all the saplings within 3 yards of him though and the smaller throwing disc helped move that cleared space to 5 yards. It wasn’t much, but it helped him feel less swarmed. Luckily, the saplings seemed just as interested in fighting each other as they did him.

Anticipate noticed a vine coming toward his left arm and then another toward his right leg. He tried his best to avoid them, but his leg got caught in the vines. He couldn’t see his attackers well enough to strike back. His Anticipate skill barely had enough data to work with to warn him. It couldn’t warn him from a completely blind attack. The ability just gave him a precise knowledge of how something he had seen would move. It worked well with his 360 Vision though. It helped him recognized when something was a threat and when it was not.

He used the held disc to free his leg and felt another vine strike his arm. It didn’t wrap around him this time. It struck with a sharp thorny tip that almost made him drop the glowing disc. It hit hard enough to draw blood, but didn’t stick in his arm. He willed the flying disc toward his right side and saw the kill tally shoot up by four as the disc shot just over the forest floor.

Another thorny vine struck his leather pants. He barely felt the pick as his armor did its work. He felt some strain as he willed the shield back into existence to use defensively this time. He took the pressure off one side and he continued to chop and block shooting vines.

The pressure of attacked lessened after the first two minutes. Then after another five he had dispatched all the saplings in a twenty meter circle. At least he hoped so. He had killed everything that had attacked him in the last minute or so. Out side his small circle of safety he saw chaos. Saplings were attacking each other, wrapping one another in vines and strangling each other. He saw a saplings vines go limp and before dissolving into Myst. The victorious sapling with purple vines absorbed the acorn the Mysts reward left behind. Moments later that sapling had a burst of massive growth. Three huge vines shot down into the ground and lifted the core of the sapling off the ground. It used the new appendages to ‘walk’ toward him. It soon stumbled onto another acorn that was left behind and began absorbing it too. He threw the disc in his right hand and struck the monster right in its core. He let the disc continue on, hopefully slicing through a few more before it bounced off a couple trees and winked out.

You have defeated:

Alianthose Sapling - Level 2

Reward accepted

“Figured you’d want to see this one,” his spore companion said.

He did. Killing and eating that one reward took the sapling from Level 0 to Level 2. It wasn’t a huge threat, but if it had killed and eaten a few more of those nuts he may be in very big trouble. He glanced out in to the chaos and noticed that exactly what he feared was happening all around him. Saplings killed saplings and were absorbing the left over Myst rewards.

He paused to think over his options. He could make a mad dash toward the Pillar, but he would have to kill monsters the whole way back. He could probably do it, but he would be diving right into the chaos he just separated himself from.

Could he stay here? Would it actually be safer to wait?

The saplings seemed content killing each other. That meant they would soon become much stronger. He’d hate to discover how much stronger they got while he was on a trek back to the Pillar and in a less defensible position. He decided he would wait it out for at least ten more minutes.

One way or another, one thing was for sure. He was in for a very long night.