Chapter 43_Chronicler’s Tale

New World Day 23

I crossed the backside of the dam of the Little Lake and returned back to the house well before the sun set in the sky. I had hurried back not because night was descending but because I didn’t want to waste any time putting my plans into motion. I didn’t know when the hobgoblin would find out that I was back so I needed to get everything set before he made a move against me. My plan started with removing the deck from around the house. The deck allowed anyone to enter the house from the broken windows on the sides and back of the house. Without the deck, the only ways into the house were the garage and the front of the house.

I wasn’t just going to destroy the deck either. I intended to dismantle it and use the wood for other projects. I alternated between training my mana enhancement, mana vision, and physical abilities while I worked on the deck. I would use my mana enhancement until my mana ran out. Then I would switch to experimenting with my mana vision and my purely physical strength while I waited for my mana to regenerate. The mana vision experiments revolved around adjusting the thickness and angle of the mana lenses I created in front of my pupil. I even tried creating multiple lenses in an attempt to reach the point where I could see more than just a white energy.

As I trained myself, I put the boards that I managed to remove without breaking inside of the house for use boarding up the broken windows. The boards that broke as I removed them were stacked along the side of the house that they were removed from. I spent those last three hours before the sun disappeared behind the horizon removing the floor boards from the deck. Tomorrow I would remove the supports and adjust the big posts that held up the entire structure.

I went over a few different aspects of my plan while I walked towards the garage door. One thought that I had but discarded for my plan was hunting enough geyser crayfish to reach level 10 and unlock a Job, but I wasn’t sure if the benefits of a Job would outweigh the amount of ammo I would need to expend to reach level 10. I decided in the end that holding onto the ammo was a better choice than the unknown benefits that a Job might give me.

I reached the garage after a little bit of walking, retreated within it, and cooked some canned goods on the fireplace for dinner. The day’s events wore me out, but I didn’t relax at this point. I trained my footwork skills while continuing to alternate between mana vision and mana enhancement until even my regen skills couldn’t keep my body going anymore. It was only at this point that I unpacked my backpack and arranged my weapons. I laid out everything on the workshop bench, cleaned them, and stacked the remaining ammo next to each of the guns. I didn’t have many shotgun slugs left, but I had a decent amount of pistol ammo and a large amount of rifle ammo. I set aside all of the extra pistol ammo and shotgun slugs for the coming fight along with a portion of the rifle ammo. The rest of the rifle ammo would be used for hunting geyser crayfish for my food for the next few days while I got everything set up.

I dragged myself back to the garage after arranging the guns to continue my plans. I was going to carve barrier runes into the entire house. I planned to set up three separate barriers for now. One for the basement, one for the first floor including the front porch, and one for the second floor and roof. I intended to work on carving them every night. I carved runes into the basement until it was 2 AM. At that point, I stopped and spent another two hours recording my adventures in my journals before I finally went to sleep. I slept for just four hours so that I would be able to get some rest yet maximize my chances of finishing all of my preparations before I was attacked.

New World Day 24

My first stop of the new day was the cow ponds along the road. I acquired five juicy tails for lunch and dinner, a dozen bottles of water, and the five mana stones corresponding to the five geyser crayfish I hunted down. I needed as many mana stones as I could acquire. The barriers I was working on needed them them as a power source. The need was great enough that I was tempted to try and hunt down some forest coyotes, but I decided that the risk of being seen by a goblin was too great. I would only go out to hunt in the morning and hurry back as a way to delay the day that they found me as much as possible.

I stored everything in the basement and continued my training and work on the deck. I spent the rest of the morning removing all of the supports from the deck. I stopped for a short time that afternoon to strain the water and cook two of the crayfish tails for lunch. It was a satisfying lunch that gave me to the energy to go full steam into the second part of my preparations. I took my axe out with me and began trimming both ends of the boards into sharp points.

It was only when night descended that I stopped working on the boards. The work had been exhausting but all of the boards were ready for the next stage. I rested for a bit while I cooked the remaining three crayfish tails for dinner, but that was the only rest that I allowed myself. I picked up my night training where I had left it and pushed myself to my limits once more. I was soaked with sweat and blood by the time my body gave out again. I was so tired this time that I worked on my journals first because my hands were shaking too much to carve runes. As I wrote down my experiences, I thought about one of the problems I encountered in my training. I wanted to be able to use both mana enhancement and mana vision at the same time, but holding the images of both skills in my mind at the same time was proving difficult. I could do it for short bursts when that was the only thing that I was concentrating on, but as soon as I added anything else to the mix, both skills would fall apart.

I was tapping the pen on my chin in when a potential solution came to mind. The solution had always been there right in front of me if I had just calmed down and thought it through. The issue was that I was trying to hold two different images in my mind at the same time. So why didn’t I just merge the images and hold one fused image? The single merged image would be more complicated than either of the individual images, but it would be easier to manage than two separate images at the same time. I couldn’t help but laugh at my stupidity for not thinking of this in the past. The calm repetitive nature of updating my journals must let my mind relax enough for the mists obscuring my path to vanish. Things were coming together just in time. The joy I felt at solving one problem gave me the energy to finish carving the basement barrier that night, and I installed a half dozen mana stones as power sources before I fell asleep.

New World Day 25

The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed and had a skip in my step as I went to hunt for food and water for the day despite the reduced sleeping hours. The last couple of days had been sunny warm days with only a few light clouds in the sky, and today was no exception. The sunny day and the successful advancement of my plans left me in an excellent mood, but I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I gathered up the day’s spoils. I didn’t have an actual detection skill, but I was learning to trust my instincts on these types of issues. I raised my head and surveyed my surroundings, but I didn’t see anything watching me. However, I noticed paw prints in the ground as I walked through the front field towards the house.

What were the chances that it was a wild forest coyote? I assumed the worst and dashed back to the house. If there was a goblin rider then there was a good chance that the hobgoblin would soon know about me. I had hoped that I would have more time to get everything ready, but I couldn’t do anything about it now. My good mood evaporated, and my mind grew restless and chaotic. I needed to get things finished up before I had visitors come a calling. I tossed everything I was carrying into the garage and rushed to finish up the work with the wood from the deck. All of the boards had been turned into sharp stakes which I proceeded to pound into the ground all around the sides and back of the house.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead after the last one was hammered deep into the ground and ran to the first floor of the house. I shifted the refrigerator out of the way of the door to the basement and retrieved the knife I was using to carve the barrier runes from the basement. I worked on holding the combined image of the mana vision and mana enhancement skills as I worked through the afternoon and the early night to finish the last two barriers. I finished up everything that I could inside the house by that time, but I would have to do the runes for the roof the next morning. I wasn’t going to risk going on the roof at night. That would be just my luck to be attacked by some crazy unknown beast because I took too many risks without thinking things through. I didn’t train my physical body that night or stay up late. Instead, I stayed up to midnight working on getting the new merged image down pat for the coming confrontation.

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Once midnight came around, I went to bed so that I would be in my best form for the next day. There were two more things that I wanted to do before I would attempt to fall asleep. I looked through the Skill catalogue, and I did see something that I could purchase with my current amount of Title Points that would be useful in my current situation. But I remembered a thought I had after I first bought a skill and decided to save them for now. What I did next was to open up the System menu and assign all of my bonus stat points. I held them back earlier so that I could get the most out of my training, but now was the time to go all out. I thought about the best use of the stat points and decided that the greatest increase to my strength laid in my mana enhancement skill and mana vision skills.

They represented a comprehensive increase in my abilities, but I could only use them together for a short period of time. Which is why I dumped all of my stat points in my spirit stat. I calculated the drain on my mana from their dual usage and realized that I could activate them indefinitely if I used all of the stockpiled bonus stats. This was the first time that I ever assigned bonus stat points, but the experience of learning the System skills, especially the barrier runes skill, prepared me for the immense power that engulfed my body. The pain was intense, but it lasted for just a short moment. After the power vanished into the nether, I felt a massive surge in my spiritual world as a smirk graced my lips. Only the runes on the roof are left hobgoblin. You’re going to regret not coming for me as soon as your minion told you about me. Heh. This house will be your burial ground.

Endurance increased by 2!

Strength increased by 3!

Speed increased by 1!

Agility increased by 1!

Spirit increased by 2!

Minor Spirit Regen (Passive) © * leveled up!

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) * has evolved into Minor Disease Resist (Passive) © *!

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) * has evolved into Minor Parasite Resist (Passive) © *!

Basic Poison Resist (Passive) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Poison Resist (Passive) (B) has evolved into Minor Poison Resist (Passive) © *!

Minor Mana Control © * leveled up!

Minor Mana Control © * has evolved into Lesser Mana Control (UC) *

Basic Close Combat Footwork (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Close Combat Footwork (Active) (B) * has evolved into Beginner Close Combat Footwork (Active) ( C ) *!

Basic Ranged Combat Footwork (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Ranged Combat Footwork (Active) (B) * has evolved into Beginner Ranged Combat Footwork (Active) © *!

Minor Barrier Runes (Active) © * leveled up!

Basic Mana Enhancement (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Mana Enhancement (Active) (B) * has evolved into Minor Mana Enhancement (Active) © *!

Basic Mana Vision (Active) (B) * leveled up!

Basic Mana Vision (Active) (B) * has evolved into Minor Mana Vision © *!

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 8 93%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

Titles:

Survivor © LVL 1 12%

Fool © LVL 1 82%

Swarm Killer (B) LVL 9 31%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 9 49%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 9 37%

Repeated Risk Taker © LVL 8 41%

Compassionate Fool © LVL 5 26%

Curious Fool © LVL 5 92%

Stupid Fool © LVL 7 96%

Extremely Stubborn Fool © LVL 5 22%

Greater Mana Wielder ® LVL N/A

Title Points:

*****

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Agility:

Spirit:

Bonus Points:

170/170

126/126

22 per min (-2.75)

Status Effects:

Regen, Spirit Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist, Poison Resist

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 9 99%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 5 84%

Lesser Regen (Passive) (UC) LVL 1 31%

Lesser Mana Control (UC) LVL 1 48%

Greater Mana Vein (Passive) ( R ) LVL 1 0%

Flexible Mana Lake (Passive) (B) LVL 4 64%

Pain Control (B) LVL 4 71%

Fear Control (B) LVL 4 89%

*****

***

Chapter 43

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