Jeff woke up to the sound of his own snores. The sound startled him out of peaceful dreams of being home with his kids. He opened his eyes and was startled by his 360 Vision bringing in way more light than he wanted while groggy. After learning about skills he wondered why his 360 Vision still counted as an ability and not a skill. Kazi had explained to him during the late night that it was just a passive ability. It was too far away from any of the Systems designated attributes to count as a skill. That made him wonder if other systems had the more typical gaming attributes like perception and wisdom.

He took in his surroundings both visually and spiritually. Sleeping in the middle of the woods was not ideal. However, he seemed to be completely safe. It was sad how strange that felt to him now. Safety now meant being a football field or so away from the nearest monster…he probably would need therapy for all of this. He wondered if the Boschyans had found a cure for PTSD.

He remembered back to being juggled by the butterfly blender of doom. Luckily Kazi had come in clutch by establishing a new ability at the moment. While he was in desperation mode above the monster.

New Disc Ability

Disc Creation

You can create discs.

The simplicity of the ability description annoyed him. So many things were likely limited due to stats. However, the ability had already helped him defeat the butterfly monster last night.

He had created a heavy disc with blades completely subconsciously, but it had saved his life. It was able to maintain enough momentum to reach the soft body of the monster beyond its spinning wings.

He was excited to train more with the ability. His disc golf style discs had been very useful, but he could now intuitively feel the ability to shape the discs how he wanted. The Disc Throw ability allowed him to create a disc that could be thrown, but it was limited. Now he could combine his new Disc Creation ability to form any style of disc.

With a smile Jeff created a chakram in one hand. The ring weapon was a similar size to his throwing discs. It was sharp on all sides except the area where he was holding the weapon. He had also added small spikey parts that poked out from the ring every so often from around the blade. The weapon looked like something Xena the warrior princess would wield.

Knowing he could use his Disc Manipulation ability with this excited him to no end. His spirit was still slightly strained however, so he threw the disc in the air and let it wink out.

Jeff hopped up to his feet with a groan, then paused…

He hadn’t felt any pain getting up…that may be the weirdest thing that had happened so far. He twisted and stretched and felt only limberness and spryness feedback coming from his body. Increasing his vitality seemed to have helped. He now felt like he had when he was just a kid. He remembered Ammon jumping off the couch and landing on his knees laughing as though he felt no pain. Jeff felt like he had that same childlike vibrance radiating through his body. That made him feel more superhuman than being able to jump higher or even seeing in every direction at once. It was amazing what his brain sought out for comfort.

With a smile on his face he set out to find exactly how safe he was. He wanted to see the aftermath of the night before. He also wanted to head toward the System Pillar. If there were still lots of monsters about he would probably just keep expanding his safety circle and keep leveling up. His Navigation ability let him know which direction to head towards. With pockets and pack completely full of monster loot Jeff began his journey back to his Pillar outcropping.

The first few minutes of his journey were surprisingly uneventful. There were even less monsters around than there had been before the chaos of the saplings all sprouting at once. Now the forest was calm. There were marks of battle that his Tracking ability picked up here and there. But he couldn’t tell where the monsters had gone, only that they were once there. Something irked within him though, something just didn’t feel right about the forest.

Then it hit him.

“Kazi, can you open up the Navigation map?”

“Yep, just one second,” came a quick reply from the spore.

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Soon a small screen opened into his vision showing some of what his Navigation skill was telling him. The spore was able to codify some of what his Mystic ability was telling him and it helped. He wasn’t sure if he just lacked enough cognition or processing power to handle all that Navigation was telling him, but the visual map helped confirm what he had suspected.

He could feel a bunch of extra trees on his path compared to what was there before last night. He walked up to a tree that seemed to be new from the night before. He very cautiously placed a hand on the tree and sent out his spiritual senses. The tree seemed to still be in an unsettled state. It didn’t have the same permanence that the trees had before last night. This tree must have been a sapling from the night before.

There were a couple things that truly surprised Jeff about this discovery. First, the tree was surprisingly large. A tree would have needed five to ten years of growth back on Earth to get this large. The next thing that surprised him was that the tree didn’t feel like a monster. He had cut down several trees so far with his discs, usually by accident. None of those trees had triggered a Myst reward by the System.

With a thought he stepped back from the tree and readied his halberd. He reached out for his Split ability and swung his halberd turned hand-axe with a mighty blow. The air blade from the ability sliced into the tree first and then his axe followed right afterward. With that one swing two blows he made it halfway through the tree. It wasn’t quite as efficient as using a disc, but it was good practice for the ability. And, honestly, it was nice to hit something. He swung his axe again with a bit more fury and sliced through the tree with the blow.

Then the tree started falling toward him. His eyes went wide and he dove to the side, summoning an energy shield between him and the falling tree. He was smushed into the ground as the tree trunk skittered off the large energy disc.

He began to feel a vibration in his body. It took him a panicked moment to remember that it was a sign of laughter coming from his spore companion. Kazi was laughing at him.

“Bahahaha! That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen!” Kazi’s laughter finally burst into his skull.

Jeff saw the chopped down tree begin to dissolve into Myst and he began to laugh at himself. At first it was just a chuckle, then the release of emotions burst a damn within him and more laughter came flooding out. He and Kazi laughed at the mishap until his sides started hurting.

“Oh ouch! What is that pain?” Kazi asked. That made Jeff laugh even harder. For all that the spore knew, the pains from laughter were a surprise to him. He forgot that Kazi was still, in many ways, just as new to all of this as he was.

He only laughed for a few minutes, but it was enough for the tree to dissolve away completely. It was weird to see the spots where the roots had been become completely open to the air. Once the tree no longer had a spirit the Myst it had collected before evolving was gathered again by the Mysts all around him.

“I really don’t get it,” he said to Kazi after catching his breath from laughing. “Why don’t I get Myst rewards from cutting down the tree?”

“Do you want the long or short answer?” Kazi asked, but Jeff knew he was in for a lecture regardless of how he answered.

Jeff began his journey back to the Pillar while his companion explained. Apparently it had to do with the agreements made between the Boschyan System and Mysts. The Boschyans sought to create peace within their area of the multiverse. Peace can be defined differently by other systems, but the Boschyans version of peace was to avoid killing organisms that were dormant or ultimately non-aggressive. So everything was determined by what the Boschyans considered as peaceful. Whenever an organism went against what was considered peaceful, and a slew of other parameters the System Creators decided on, then they were considered a Monster. Jeff could feel that difference with his spiritual sense because of how different the monster's spirit was when it wasn’t acting peaceful.

“What about myself?” He eventually asked. “I mean, I haven’t exactly been peaceful. I’ve attacked monsters who had not provoked me, and I’ve done a decent amount of collateral damage against dormant trees. Why doesn’t the System see me as a Monster.”

Kazi responded with his typical lecturing voice, “You have fused with a sapient spore so the rules are changed for you. At least to an extent. If you went on a rampage destroying a bunch of peacefully dormant creatures then that would ultimately affect your spirit. There are some titles that you can earn by the System that make it so you are seen as basically a monster by all who look at you.”

As Kazi finished they walked out of the edge of the forest and onto the rocky ground of his cliff peninsula. His questions died on his tongue as he saw that several trees had sprouted on the few patches of soil found on the rocky outcropping. He was glad that he didn’t have to face anything else right now. He also imagined that most of the monsters in the forest had joined the fray the night before. All the insects were either destroyed or had increased their power immensely like that butterfly. Either way, they had most likely been thinned out. That meant encounters would be much less likely.

That sounded nice to him. He wouldn’t mind taking a day or two off after accomplishing so many quests.

That’s right! he thought. Now’s the perfect time to get my quest rewards. Maybe after I turn in all of my loot to the System Pillar. Jeff rubbed his hands in greed. Just four days in a magical world and he had already turned into a loot goblin.