Jeff balked as the flying creature swooped toward him like the swipe of a massive scythe.

“Move!” shouted Kazi. Jeff discovered that it helps to have someone who knows when your brain turns off.

He blinked and set his feet to leap to the side. Anticipate activated and warned him the monster butterfly would react to his movement. He couldn’t fully dodge, so then what? No time to think, just act.

He fell backward and activated the Energy Shield. The shield stayed parallel to his falling motion as he fell to the ground. The razor sharp wing slammed into the shield halfway through his fall. The glowing energy forced the wing up and forced Jeff straight down.

He slammed into the earth with a loud thud that drove the air out of his lungs. His head snapped and he could feel the pain in his neck from the whiplash. Every part of his body screamed for him to pause and recover. He ignored all of it.

Turning off his shield Jeff rolled himself to his stomach and pushed up into a plank hoping to spot where the monster had gone. He just barely spied the glistening tops of fluttering wings. They blended into the dimly lit purple and green foliage of the high canopy. He struggled to his feet, still desperately waiting for his lungs to allow him to breathe again.

He made a glowing disc and finally felt air fill his lungs. He bent to the side and hucked the sharp disc with desperate speed. It wobbled in its flight for a moment before hitting the air and rising due to its angle. The disc slammed into the patterned wing with a loud metallic clang that reverberated through the forest. The disc was batted down with one swift flap. The steel winged butterfly fluttered a moment then redirected itself toward him with unnatural grace.

Jeff took off toward the trees diving down near the closest tree’s roots. He heard the wood above him splinter. His 360 Vision saw the tree descend toward his prone form as it separated from the stump he now lay beside. He scrambled forward in a desperate crawl and heard a loud crash behind him. Large puffs of dust shot in the air all around him. The dust forced his eyes shut, closing off his 360 vision with each eye blink. He cast about with his spirit sense. He was nervous to lose himself with the new remote viewing ability again, so he just struck with his soft sense field. The trees seemed to be back to their dormant state now that their seeds had dropped. That helped him to find the butterfly fluttering just overhead.

The monster dove straight down and landed gracefully. Anticipate warned him that the butterfly was about to pirouette into a large sweeping circle. Time seemed to slow just long enough for him to push himself off the ground with all his strength. He kicked his feet into the air forcing himself horizontal with arms stretched out in front of him.

The butterfly’s spin continued on into a Mystical tornado. His Anticipate did not anticipate that. The wings just beneath him looked like blades of a blender speeding up. He activated his Energy Shield praying that it could protect him long enough to readjust somehow.

The glowing shield slammed into the silvery and sparkly blender of doom. The blow launched him up and twisted him. He had just enough time to manipulate the shield to his side so it struck the spinning monster’s wings again. He tried to angle the shield so the next strike would shove him outside of the circle instead of up in the air. The shield slammed against the spinning blade wings. The force launched him away, or so he had hoped.

To his surprise the monster spun itself right underneath his new descent. Twisting his body he placed the shield between himself and the monster butterfly blender again. His reaction time was pushed to the max. Each time he fell it felt like his life was flashing before his eyes. It was launching him up over and over like a ping pong ball on a paddle.

The strain on his spirit grew with each new hit to his shield. He didn’t have long before his shield would drop and he would be blended into a disgusting Jeff smoothie. With a desperate yell he created a disc and threw it through the shield at the center of the blades. The disc struck silver and bounced around a few times before winking out.

He yelled again in frustration and was launched into the air once again with a hit to his energy shield. He created discs in both hands and threw them down at the Mystling monster. Both of those bounced away and so he created more and threw them again. He hadn’t felt his spirit strain at creating discs in a long time, but he pushed it in a desperate attempt to somehow damage his opponent.

With a burst of spiritual yearning he created another disc that could somehow make it through. He barely noticed the new shape of the disc in his hand before he started spinning the disc with his manipulation and sent it down into the maelstrom below. The bladed and spinning disc sliced through wings as he put all of his willpower into forcing the glowing projectile downward. His spirit strained and spiked with pain, but he continued to push down with everything he had. Everything he was.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Squish.

The disc rattled against the wings until it made it down into the butterfly’s caterpillar-like body. The tornado came to a sudden stop and Jeff fell toward the hard forest dirt. Out of pure habit he moved his energy shield below him. His shield struck the ground and he came to a sudden stop again at the force.

He groaned. He was going to have a terrible time recovering from all the whiplash he was going through. The shield was great at spreading force over a large area, but his body still took all that force each time he was bounced up in the air. He let the shield wink out and dropped the last couple meters to the ground with a thump.

You have defeated:

Forest Silver Butterfly - Level 13

Abilities:

Blade Blend

Steel Wings

Camouflage

Lithe Body

Strong Bite

Rewards Accepted

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

He rolled to the side to see the butterfly begin to dissolve. If it dropped an item of some sort he felt the fight might have been worth it. Of course, surviving was its own consolation prize.

The Myst rushed toward him glittering in the beams of moonlight that broke through the canopy. Left behind were two objects he could barely see on the forest floor. Based on where the monster had been when it dissolved one was a small portion of the metallic wings and the other was a curled up piece of what looked like yellowish leather. He got excited and moved to pick it up, despite all of his body’s complaints to do so. His body was hurt, but his spirit was the thing that was the most strained.

The metallic wing looked like a huge shard of a decorated mirror. He left that for a moment and looked at the yellowish piece of coiled leather. Was it a super short whip or something?

It took him a while, but he eventually remembered that a butterflies' antennae actually curled at the end. He was getting all excited about a nose. All his excitement over loot drained out of him. Sometimes coming out alive was all you really got out of something.

“Bummer,” he mumbled. “Hey Kazi, why did that thing leave behind two pieces this time?”

“That’s pretty typical for monsters above level 10. Their bodies are so rife with Myst that there is room in the System’s reward structure for two body parts to be left behind. Of course, it’s not a one hundred percent guaranteed thing that you will get two. Just like everything else in the multiverse, there are exceptions.” Jeff nodded along as the Spore elaborated. “It’s also tied to the stat Tiers, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you the exact differences those make.”

He bent down to pick up the silver piece of wing on the ground. He expected it to be heavy due to the metallic nature, but the wing felt light and leathery. The Steel Wing ability the monster had must have turned off once it died. He had a thought to turn the hard wing into a shield or armor, but that wouldn’t work now.

It was amazing how much of a difference the ability made. If he could have skin as strong as that ability he would be indestructible. Maybe he could spend time remembering wearing football pads and build up a connection to armor?

You have leveled up to Level 10!

Quest Complete:

Reach Level 10: (Completed)

Reward: New Ability (Available)

Two screens popped into his vision disrupting his thoughts. Luckily the new ability reward said “available” instead of “accepted”. Thank you, Kazi.

Collapsing into a forced vision didn’t seem like the best idea right now. He wouldn’t mind sleep though. It was getting late into the evening and he had only slept one time since he entered the Pillar. His spirit was strained and his body was flagging, despite his increased vitality. He wondered if increasing his Vitality to 10 would give him a skill where he no longer needed sleep.

He cast his strained spirit sense out around the circle he had made. He couldn’t sense anything nearby, so he decided to relax a bit and put in his attribute points. He sat down near the center of the circle against a dormant tree and opened up his screens with a thought to Kazi. He had 6 available points from his last two level ups. He was way too tired to think through the decision so he just dumped the points into his lagging stats bringing as many as he could up to 5.

Name: Jeff Kazi

Titles: Locked

Renown: Locked

Merit Points: 354

Myst Connections:

Disc Middle Mastery

Survival Low Mastery

Awareness Low Mastery

Abilities:

Throw Disc Middle Mastery

Disc Manipulation Middle Mastery

Energy Shield Middle Mastery

Foraging Low Mastery

Tracking Low Mastery

Split (Rogue)

360 Vision Low Mastery

Anticipate Low Mastery

Navigation Low Mastery

Skills:

Remote Viewing

Myst Trance

Meditative Boost

Stats: Level 10

Body: Tier 1

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Vitality: 5

Mind: Tier 1

Cognition: 5

Processing: 5

Imagination: 3

Spirit: Tier 2

Might: 5

Sense: 10

*Depth: 10

Available Points: 0

A tingle went through his body and brain as his attributes suddenly improved. He put two points into Cognition, which made his brain feel tingly while his thoughts became more focused. Then one point into Strength, Dexterity, Vitality and Processing. He was feeling more superhuman now. Superhuman, but still in a lot of pain. That last fight had hurt both body and spirit.

He tried to reach out with his yearning toward his skill Myst Trance. It didn’t activate like he was hoping it would. It wasn’t an ability he could just “turn on” without knowing how it worked. He instead had to drop into the correct meditative state.

I guess it takes skill to use Skills, he thought. He felt a bit of amusement from the Spore and a bone vibrating chuckle. Kazi was feeling the spiritual strain just the same as himself.

The last time he dropped into the trance was after he had strained his spirit through training and then went into the forced vision that which gave him the Survival connection

He tried to remember how he dropped into the trance before. Last time he sought the Myst around him out of necessity. Luckily, dropping into the trance felt like riding a bike. He watched the Myst around him glittering in the moonbeams. He began to see the hints of a pattern in the swirling Myst. He slumped against the tree trunk behind him and allowed himself to be pulled into the trance.