Book 2 Chapter 8_Chronicler’s Tale

New World Day 33

After I reached the safety of the garage, I forced myself to take the singed backpacks into the workshop and unload them. The surviving food went into the refrigerator and freezer. Neither worked, but they were still the coldest places in the house. I strained the water right away as well. One handed straining with broken ribs was not an enjoyable experience. I dragged my battered body back to the garage once I finished taking care of those chores.

I leaned my head against the garage wall and took inventory of my injuries. Dislocated shoulder, four broken ribs, a baker's dozen burns, and a face so bloody and cut up that it would give even adults nightmares. I knew the burns, scrapes, and ribs would heal on their own thanks to my regen skill, but I worried about the dislocated shoulder. I feared that I had to pop it back in myself before the regeneration would kick in for it. I tapped my head against the wall again and again and then in one quick motion I grabbed my shoulder with my good hand and shoved it back into place. A flare of pain swept through my body, but only a grunt escaped from my lips. Pain was fast becoming an old friend.

I turned around, put my back to the wall, and let myself slide down to the ground. I tried out my active Regen skill for the second time since I purchased it. The fact that I possessed it kept slipping from my mind. I was used to relying on the passive regen. The various burns healed and faded away by the time my mana drained away. I just needed to let my passive skills do their work now. I drifted off to sleep a few minutes after my ass hit the ground.

A bright beam of sunlight found just the right angle necessary to blind me. The unwelcome light forced me awake around twilight. My eyes and face no longer ached as much as before, but one shift to the side told me that my broken ribs were still there. I forced myself to my feet despite the pain and staggered into the workshop. I pulled some coyote meat out of the refrigerator and took it to the garage for dinner. I started up the fire and sat carving runes as I waited for it to grow hot enough for cooking. I activated my Quick Thinking skill and called up memories and images from the depths of my mind at the same time as I practiced my carving. It made the carving more difficult, but it let me practice multiple skills at the same time. Besides, it might prove useful to be able to carve runes while distracted.

I continued the practice long after dinner was finished and night fell. I added in image training for restraining my mana and messed with my vision skill as well. The various skills pulled my mind in four or five directions at once, and I started making mistake after mistake. I found myself smiling despite the mistakes. The extra difficulty made it much more enjoyable practicing my rune carving. I might make more progress in any one skill by concentrating on it alone, but this way I made a little progress on a half dozen skills.

Some thoughts floated through my mind about the runes and how best to connect them together. I wanted an automated way to trigger the barrier rune. If I connected the threshold rune from the alarm rune set to the activation rune from the barrier rune set would that allow the barrier to activate as soon as the threshold was reached? Would the normal power supply from the mana stones kick in thanks to the small stream the threshold rune could send? If it didn’t activate the normal power supply then could I change it so that all of the power for the barrier was supplied from the alarm rune? I worried that the alarm runes couldn’t handle that level of power which brought back to mind what happened earlier today.

The mixed training ended and my train of thought was diverted when I recalled the image of the lightning runes and how they reacted to the massive amount of power they absorbed. The power contained had bent and almost shattered them, but it was like there was a thin barrier that flexed and forced the energy to stay within the runes. Is that what I was doing wrong with my restraint training?

The image I envisioned was one where the mana stayed just beneath the skin and didn’t leak out of the body. What if I added a thin barrier of mana underneath my skin to block the mana from escaping? Would that lower the mental strength needed to hold the compound image in my mind? The idea was similar to my spiritual body, but for this scenario, I intended to create a temporary barrier instead of a permanent spiritual body. I needed to combine four images instead of three, but I could borrow from the image of the lens used for my mana vision as a way to reduce the number of extra details used in the image.

I stopped practicing every other type of training and focused solely on this new image. Hours drifted by and I felt warm trickles of liquid sliding down by face and neck. My mind felt like it was being drawn and quartered, but I persevered until everything clicked into place just like how the overloaded lightning runes clicked back into place. Multiple System windows popped up in the corner of my eye and verified for me that I had succeeded in my endeavor. A small smile emerged and my chest heaved as a few quiet chuckles escaped my lips. I frikken did it!

I pushed myself to my feet with my left hand and started to test the new skill out then and there. The difference between using the Mana Restraint skill and not using it was enormous. The skill forced the mana to remain inside of my body which then increased the power available for both my enhancement and vision skills. The synergy between the three was astonishing. The three skills drained more mana than I could gather in a minute, but the extra strength granted to the two skills was worth it. I did need to push my mana regen higher than before so that I could use all three at once without draining my mana lake dry. My Spirit stat was high enough that it wasn’t likely to grow via training more which left either a skill upgrade, skill creation, or bonus points. A Mana Vein upgrade would work, but I wasn’t sure of the direction needed to improve them at this point, and I needed my title points for other skills. That left only one path. I pumped 15 of my bonus points into my Spirit stat and solved the issue right away.

I practiced the skill numerous times while the success was still fresh in my mind. I stopped once I felt that I had it down pat. I had a nagging feeling that I missed something during the creation of the skill. It took a little while, but it came to me. It was easier to create the barrier needed for the skill in the area around my toes. The exact area where I practiced creating my spiritual body. A theory creeped into my mind about why that was the case. I had noticed that I could create more toes as time passed. I attributed it to an increase in my personal abilities, but what if that wasn’t the entire reason? When you erased words from a pad of paper, the impression of the words remained behind. The more you wrote in the same place the deeper the impression and the easier it became to trace the words. What if it worked the same way for the creation of a spiritual body? The more I practised creating a specific part of the spiritual body the easier it would become to create it?

I relaxed against the wall and decided to test the theory out. I shifted to working on my fingers. My pinky finger to be specific. I created the outline, let it fade, and then created it again I repeated the process 50 times. After the 50th time, I activated my new mana restraint skill, and I paid special attention to my pinky finger. It was faint, but it was as I suspected. The pinky finger barrier was easier to create. A path emerged that gave me hope of creating a spiritual body far sooner than I had expected. I spent the rest of the night working on different parts of my body. The last thing I did before I went to bed was my normal routine with my journals.

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Title awarded! Magic Practitioner (B) ***

Skill Created! Mana Restraint (B) ***

Mind increased by 1!

Lesser Regen (Passive) (UC) * leveled up!

Basic Regen (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Lesser Spirit Regen (Passive) (UC) * leveled up!

Beginner Barrier Runes (Active) © * leveled up!

Basic Alarm Runes (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Flawless Memory (Passive) (B) ***** leveled up!

Title Explanation:

Practitioner (B) *** LVL 1 0%: A title awarded to any user who reaches a certain level of expertise in manipulating one of the energies of the universe. The rank of the title will increase with every ten levels. Rarity is determined by the level of expertise the user has in each energy available to them. The more energies and the greater the expertise the higher the rarity.

Skill Explanation:

Mana Restraint (B) *** LVL 1 0%: A skill that restrains the user’s mana and prevents it from leaving the user’s body. The rank of the skill will increase with every ten levels. Higher ranks increase the effectiveness of the restraint. Higher rarities allow the user to restrain the mana of other beings. Due to the fact that this skill raises the density of mana within the user’s body, it synergizes with any skill that requires dense amounts of mana and boosts said skill’s effectiveness and/or efficiency.

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: Amateur Chronicler

LVL:11 96%

Job LVL: 2 78%

Job Points:

N/A

*****

Titles:

Survivor © LVL 5 43%

Fool © LVL 2 31%

Horde Killer © LVL 2 12%

Beast Killer © LVL 2 48%

Risk Taker © LVL 2 23%

Repeated Risk Taker (UC) LVL 1 6%

Compassionate Fool © LVL 5 26%

Curious Fool © LVL 6 40%

Stupid Fool © LVL 9 12%

Extremely Stubborn Fool © LVL 6 83%

Practitioner (B) LVL 1 0%

Greater Mana Wielder ® LVL N/A

Title Points:

***

*****

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Psi:

Mana Regen:

Psi Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Agility:

Spirit:

Mind:

Bonus Points:

72/185

158/158

34/34

26 per min (-2.75)

2.75 per min (-1)

Status Effects:

Regen, Spirit Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist,

Poison Resist, Broken Ribs x4, Scrapes x17,

Slight Mental Break, Physical Deterioration

Skills:

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 8 11%

Lesser Regen (Passive) (UC) LVL 3 13%

Basic Regen (Active) (B) LVL 2 82%

Lesser Spirit Regen (Passive) (UC) LVL 2 3%

Lesser Mana Control (UC) LVL 4 64%

Greater Mana Veins (Passive) ® LVL 1 75%

Flexible Mana Lake (Passive) (B) LVL 6 91%

Fear Control (B) LVL 6 83%

Basic Alarm Runes (Active) (B) LVL 8 72%

Mana Restraint (Active) (B) LVL 1 0%

Flawless Memory (Passive) (B) LVL 4 42%

Quick Thinking (Active) (B) LVL 3 92%

*****

***

*****

Book 2 Chapter 8

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