Chapter 7_Chronicler’s Tale

New World Day 2

I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but in time, the darkness that had come crashing down upon me gradually began to clear. My mind was groggy at first. Extraordinarily groggy. I was unable to quite remember what had happened, but vague memories of a series of fights floated elusively through my mind. Every time I tried to concentrate on one of the memories a searing pain ran through my mind allowing the darkness to encroach in on upon me once more. I’m not sure how many times I repeated the cycle of grabbing at the vague memories and passing out from the pain, but eventually I was able to hold on and pull the pieces of my mind back together without passing out.

As my senses came back to me, the first thing that returned was my sense of smell. A strong acrid smell of blood permeating the air. Panting with effort, I slowly opened my eyes only to be greeted by a darkness that was illuminated by just a few streaks of sunlight peeking through the garage door windows. Sometime while I was unconscious the generator must have run out of gas cutting the power to the house. Leaning forward, I looked down to my left side and then my calf. The skin that had been torn apart by the claws of the beast were gone. The wounds from the beast had all closed up leaving behind only some faint white lines, and even those seemed to fade before my eyes. Staying sitting, I twisted my torso and tensed my calf to see how they felt. There was a small stab of pain while moving and a low steady ache afterwards, but otherwise they seemed to be alright. I decided not to push things too far too quickly. Instead, I leaned back against the wall and thought over what had happened and all of the poor decisions I had made. I made a short mental list.

1. I didn’t take the time to properly explore the System. Yes, I had listened to the Tutorial, but I didn’t bother to pull up the Title Skill list or even try to see what commands the System would accept. Everything worked out in the end, but I shouldn’t have left things to chance.

2. I was not nearly as careful as I should have been when I started gathering supplies from the ground floor. I should have been carefully and periodically checking my surroundings instead of letting myself become consumed by a need for speed.

3. I should have worked on making my home as secure as possible first, and then I could have gathered the supplies more leisurely. Even if the goblin and beasts still attacked me I wouldn’t have been as panicked setting things up.

4. I should have reloaded the shotgun immediately after the fight with the goblin. A few extra shots with it might have made things much easier for me in the fight with the small pack.

5. I should have closed the damn garage door. I can’t afford to be so careless in the future. If I had closed the damn door, the beasts might have gone away without even bothering me.

Nodding to myself mentally, I committed the list of mistakes to memory. I was sure that I would make a multitude of additional mistakes, the world was too different too foreign now for me not to, but I could at least make sure I didn’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Choosing to rectify my first mistake right away, I thought, “Status!”

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

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 1 55%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 1 25%

Fool (B) LVL 1 0%

Pack Killer (B) LVL 1 0%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 1 0%

Title Points:

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Bonus Points:

60/100

10/10

2 per min (-1)

Status Effects:

Regen

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 2 25%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 3 45%

Basic Regen (Passive) (B) LVL 4 10%

Immediately, I saw that I now had mana points and mana regen. Since the only thing that had changed from my last Status check was that I had gained that regen skill, I had to assume that was what awakened those stats. When I concentrated on trying to find my mana inside my body, my vision disappeared and darkness appeared all around me once again. Frantic and fearing that I was passing out once again, I quickly stopped concentrating and tried to force myself to stay awake by pinching and twisting the skin of my thigh. Right away the darkness faded away and my surroundings appeared around me once again. Puzzled and in pain, I tried concentrating on finding my mana again, and the darkness appeared around me just like before. Not panicking this time, I looked around and found a blob of white light floating behind me in the middle of the darkness. Staring at the blog of light I thought, “Could that be my mana? Is this some inner world, or is this an effect of the System? Hmmmm. Hmmm. Hmm. What happens if I try to move it?” Willing myself forward, I tried to touch the white blob only for my hand to pass right through the it. I couldn’t physically interact with it, and for that matter why did I even have a hand here? If this was my mana then wasn’t I inside my own body somewhere? Was this a mental or imaginary body? Smacking my forehead, I thought, “If that really is the case then of course I can’t physically interact with it. I have to will it to move with my mind.” Concentrating all of my will on that little blob of light, I tried to will it to change shape, but the damn blob wouldn’t move at all. After that first failure, I tried something less complicated than changing shapes. I just tried to get it to move side to side. The blob trembled slightly this time but stayed where it was. Slowing down, I decided to go all the way to the absolute basics and see if I could force it to contract a little just like I would tense a muscle. Success! The blob contracted ever so slightly. Consoling myself, I thought, “One step at a time. Just take it one step at a time.” Exiting the inner world, a shock ran through my mind as I realized I had seen that white light before. The stone I took from the goblin had a similar light burning within it. Did I have a stone like that in me now? I started pressing and pushing on my chest and stomach trying to find any new bulge in my body that could represent a similar stone or new organ, but my only success was making myself nauseous.

Leaving the practice and experiments for later, I decided to move on to another issue. Namely my Skills. My regeneration skill had leveled up a few times in my sleep. Since it was a passive skill that always remained in effect, I guessed it would level up automatically as I got injured and it healed me. Musing to myself, I thought, “Perhaps there would be a way to push it to greater heights if I could find some way to control it. Maybe I could gain the Active version of the skill if I worked on it, and if I could then get both going at the same time that would hopefully allow me to heal much more quickly and from even deadlier wounds.” Wanting to gain a greater understanding of my skills but not sure if it would work I thought, “Skill Explanation?”

Basic Axe Mastery (B) * LVL 2 25% : This skill represents the user’s skill with an axe. The rank of the skill will increase every ten levels. At higher ranks and greater rarities it becomes possible to use special skills and attacks with the axe by pairing various energies with the use of the axe. The various skills are too many to be listed.

Basic Gun Mastery (B) * LVL 3 45% : This skill represents the user’s skill with guns. The rank of the skill will increase every ten levels. At higher ranks and greater rarities it becomes possible to use special skills and attacks with guns by pairing various energies with the gun and bullets. The various skills are too many to be listed.

Basic Regen (Passive) (B) * LVL 4 10% : This mana based skill automatically heals the user from any wound they might receive until the body returns to the most ideal condition. The rank of the skill will increase every ten levels. If a wound or wounds are too serious the regeneration may not be able to keep up with the damage and the user could die. At greater ranks and rarities it becomes possible for the regeneration to heal old wounds received before the skill was gained. In addition, it becomes possible for lost limbs and organs to regenerate. Greater rarity versions often offer quicker or greater regeneration in exchange for a drawback of some kind. For example, Troll Regen (B) **** will give far greater and quicker regeneration in exchange for causing the user to become weak to fire. Basic Regen (Passive) (B) * currently automatically takes 1 mana per minute from the user in order to function. This deduction can not currently be controlled by the user.

The explanations that I had hoped for appeared in front of me. I carefully read through them and took note of a few things. First that I could increase the rank once each skill hit level ten. Second that there were various additional skills that I could unlock after I increased the two masteries to a certain rank or rarity. Finally, I made sure to remember that a higher rarity didn’t guarantee that the skill was better. If I had to accept a weakness in exchange for a rare skill it might not be worth it. I didn’t know if all rarer skills were like the Troll Regen example, but it was something to definitely keep in mind. Determined to get all of the information out the System that I could, I thought, “Title Explanation?”

Survivor (B) * LVL 1 25% : This title is awarded to any user that survives a dangerous encounter. The more dangerous encounters the user survives the higher the rank will become. Rarity is determined and increased by surviving rare dangers. The rank of the title will increase with every ten levels.

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Fool (B) * LVL 1 0% : This title is awarded to any user that makes a number of foolish decisions in a short period of time. The more foolish decisions made by the user the higher the rank will become. Rarity is determined by the type of foolish decisions made. The rank of the title will increase with every ten levels.

Pack Killer (B) * LVL 1 0% : This title is awarded to any user that successfully kills a pack of animals. The more packs killed by the user the higher the rank will become. Rarity is determined by size of the packs killed and how rare the animals are that make up the pack. The rank of the title will increase with every ten levels.

Beast Killer (B) * LVL 1 0%: This title is awarded to any user that successfully kills a number of beasts in a short period of time. The more beasts killed by the user the higher the rank will become. Rarity is determined both by how many beasts are killed in a short period of time and by how rare the beasts are that the user kills. The rank of the title will increase with every ten levels.

There were a few different things in the Title Explanation screen than the Skill Explanation screen that quickly popped out to me. The explanations not only told me explicitly why I received the titles, but they also told me exactly how to increase both the rarity and rank of the titles. Thinking to the future, I decided that I needed to start writing down all of the information that I was able to gather from the System and from the world around me. There was a saying that knowledge was power, and I thought that that saying was more true now than ever before. If someone knew how to learn certain skills and gain certain titles, they could use that knowledge to quickly gain more title points and spend those points much more effectively than doing everything blindly. Combined with that, knowing what beasts they could encounter, how dangerous said beasts were, and where they were most likely to meet such beasts would no doubt be a godsend. I knew that there were some notebooks in the stand next to the bed in the other room, but I held off from going to get them. Impulsiveness had nearly gotten me killed. There was a time and a place for quick decisions, and right now I had time to plan things out properly.

Sitting there, I began to do just that. First was safety, then sustenance, next clean up and repositioning of the barricades, followed by gathering supplies, then training, and finally writing everything down before at least attempting to sleep. With my plans set, I stood up slowly and picked up the shotgun. I took it and the pistol to the bedroom where I inspected them for damage There were a few dings and dents, but they were fine otherwise. Once I was finished with the inspections I made sure to reload both of them. Next, I needed to get some food and water in me. I was absolutely starving. Heading into the workshop where I left the plastic bags of food. I grabbed some bread, lunch meat, and some bottled water from the refrigerator. Moving back to the bedroom, I sat in the loveseat and proceeded to devour everything I had grabbed. In the end, I drank 4 bottles of water and ate 3 ham sandwiches. The lunch meat would spoil in a few days without power so I didn’t feel too bad about eating so much of it.

With that taken care of, I needed to do something about the bodies in the garage. They would decay in time and the worsening smell wouldn’t be good for my health. It might even attract more beasts before long. I would need to get rid of them, and I had an idea about how to do it without keeping a stack of bodies near the house. I could roll them onto a tarp from the workshop, drag them to the edge of the hill, and then roll them down towards the nearby lake. I hoped that whatever new creatures lived in the lake would appreciate the free meal and dispose of the bodies for me.

Before I sent them on their way though, I would need to take anything from the bodies that I would want to keep. I wondered briefly if I should try taking the claws, fangs and fur, but I wasn’t sure of how to remove them safely or turn them into tools and clothing. Maybe I would have time to experiment in the future once I was better situated, but for now I didn’t think I should waste the time. There was however one thing I wanted to try and retrieve from the bodies. I was reasonably certain that the odd stone that still sat in my pocket had been removed by the goblin from the big beast, and I wanted to see if each of these smaller ones had one too. I wasn’t completely sure what it was or what it did, but my instincts were telling me that they were important. After my experience working with my mana, I had a suspicion that they might be the organ that allowed the beasts to use mana. If I was right and that was mana trapped inside of it, then maybe I could extract or use the mana in some way.

I thought for a moment about if it was best to open them up inside the garage or out on the driveway and decided that it would be too dangerous to do it outside. I would need to get the tarp under them before I cut them open to search for the stone, but the extra blood and organs shouldn’t cause too much of an issue since the garage was already covered in blood. Getting to work, I grabbed a shiny blue tarp from the workshop along with the set of knives my Dad kept for processing deer. After laying the tarp on the ground in front of the first barricade of ATVs, I rolled one of the front two beasts onto the tarp and slowly made an incision on its chest. I gasped and gagged in disgust as the organs began to spill out. Nevertheless, I reached into the chest cavity and felt around. It took good bit of searching during which I touched things that really didn’t want to ever touch again and nearly vomited probably a dozen times over, but I found it! It felt like there was something like a net around the stone along with a web of veins radiating out from the net. I closed my hand around it as best I could and gave it a few hard yanks. The mushy feeling of the net and squishy sounds that accompanied each pull were nauseating, but I managed to yank it out without vomiting. Pulling my hand out of the beast’s chest, I took a look at my prize and found there was a network of blue gooey veins wrapped around the stone that I quickly pried off. This stone was maybe half the size of the original one that I had found, but it still glowed with that same inner fire. Pleased with my success, a slight smile emerged upon my face. Just three more to go!

It took a bit of muscle and maneuvering along with a bit of puking thanks to the increasingly foul smell, but after about an hour, I had everything finished up. There were four new mana stones, the name I had picked for them, all of a similar size sitting on the workshop bench and the four beasts were lined up on the tarp right by the garage door. Now that the messy part was done, it was time to dispose of the bodies. I didn’t want to repeat my past mistakes, and so, I cautiously peered out the garage door windows to see if I could see anything moving around. I saw some normal animals like squirrels and chipmunks but I didn’t see anything dangerous. Even so, I still needed to be careful. Pulling the garage door up manually, I walked out slowly with my shotgun in hand and my head swiveling side to side. I closed the garage door behind me and slowly started to do a lap around the house to verify there was nothing around. However, when I reached the front of the house and looked south towards where the city of Falmouth sat, there was something that left me absolutely stunned.

An enormous awe-inspiring mountain range was framed perfectly by the setting sun. It's great gray and white peaks pierced deep into the sky. It was lit up by a shimmering pattern of gorgeous reds and oranges that emerged unhindered from the cloudless sky. The mountain range sat in a place where there had previously only been a large lake and some modestly large hills. Breathing out slowly, I forced myself to complete my sweep around the house and filed away that change in the environment for later. It wasn’t like I could do anything about it right now. Now that I was satisfied that there was no immediate danger, I opened the garage door and pulled the tarp outside bodies and all. Once the tarp was clear of the garage, I closed the garage door and slowly dragged everything over to the edge of the hill just to the left of the garage door. Thankfully, the slick tarp slid over the driveway’s gravel with ease allowing me to move all four bodies at once. It took some muscle and got me even messier than before, but I was able to roll each of the bodies over the hill down towards the lake. They didn’t roll far, but it was far enough that I thought the lake beasts would come to take them eventually.

Finished with that, I dragged the tarp over to the rock wall next to the garage door where the bigger beast and goblin laid. I intended to do the same thing to their bodies that I did to the beasts from the garage, but first I did a second quick sweep around the house. After confirming that the area was still clear, I proceeded to dispose of the remaining two bodies in the same manner stopping only to relieve myself near the side of the house. I thought about checking to see if the goblin’s body had a mana stone as well, but I wasn’t yet so adjusted to my new reality that I felt comfortable dissecting another intelligent creature. By the time I was finished with the bodies, the sun was setting, and I decided that it would be best to wait until morning to grab the clothes from the top floor of the house. Thankfully, I got back into the garage and locked it without a hitch this time. I had only been awake for a few hours at best, but I was already exhausted. I wanted to sleep, but I knew I couldn’t afford to.

There were a few things that I still had to attend to before I could attempt to sleep. First, I pushed the ATVs back into a nice barricade in front of the garage door. I had to flip them back onto their wheels, but they weren’t too heavy of vehicles. Next, I decided to do a bit of training. I started by excitedly working on my mana. What wasn’t to be excited about you ask? This was the first step to magic! MAGIC! Every little kids dream! It was a boring practice of forcing it to contract and then relax over and over and over again, but that didn’t lessen my excitement. After an hour of heated yet mind numbing practice, I found that I had developed a pounding headache. Putting a hand to my head, I realized that it must take more out of me to practice manipulating mana than I originally realized. I was only forcing it to contract a little, but it still caused me to feel like I had physically smashed my head into a wall. It was likely because it isn’t something that I was used to doing, and so, I hoped that the pain would lessen as I got used to the training. Ending the mana training there for today, I took up the axe and started to swing it. I did one hundred over hand swings with each hand individually, then one hundred sideways swings with each hand, followed by one hundred overhand swings with both hands, and finally one hundred sideways swings with both hands. By the time I was finished, my hands were covered in blood from popped blisters and I was absolutely drenched in sweat. I was deeply surprised that I was able to ignore the blisters that cropped up during my training. I had never been the best at dealing with pain. Even just a couple of days ago I never would have been able to complete that training program. Did I develop a resistance to pain already? Laughing a little to myself, I dismissed that thought and decided it was thanks to my new regeneration skill. That was one skill that kept on giving but I was disappointed when I saw that my stats hadn’t increased at all. Midway through the workout, it occurred to me that I had gone far beyond my original limits. The constant regeneration allowed my body to recover and grow stronger quicker than I ever could have before, but even so, I was apparently still too optimistic on how quickly my stats would grow.

Exhausted from my training, I headed back to the bedroom, put the axe next to the bed, peeled off my ruined clothes, wiped my body off with an old teal hand towel from the bathroom, and collapsed on the bed. A welcoming darkness quickly enveloped me, and my second day in the New World came to an end.

Basic Axe Mastery (B) * leveled up!