"I almost died."
Those were the first words he'd said out loud since he came to this world. And they were true. He had almost died just then. The only reason he'd survived was getting lucky with a boulder. "That was a giant crab that just chased me, and I almost died because of it. This is real. It's all real." And it was. The taste of blood in his mouth from overexerting himself was just as real as the pain in his sides and the giant dead crab that he was sat on top of.
"I almost died. But I didn't die. I survived." Panting, he thrust his fist in the air, almost like a feeble attempt to punch the brightly shining moon. "I am triumphant!" His victory lap was cut short by the exhaustion finally catching up to him as he collapsed on top of the still-warm carcass in a surprisingly restful sleep.
EXPERIENCE GAIN SUMMARY:
Stamina Expenditure: 130
Monster Kills: Giant Crab [Level 8] x1 [500]
Level Up! Level Up!
Current Level: 2
Attribute Points: 30
Skill Points: 3
"Son of a bitch!" He ruined a bird's perfectly good nap by screaming that as he woke to the blindingly flashy blue notification window, flailing his arms as he tried to sit up. "What in the goddamn fuck was that? Is this...no. It can't be. Did my wish come true? Am I really in a LitRPG Portal Fantasy?" He had to smack himself as hard as he could for that one. "Thank whatever the hell is responsible for this no one was around to hear that. I'd have sounded like a complete and utter idiot." He got up and stretched a bit, but the window stayed. "Uh...dismiss?" Without a sound, the window popped out of existence.
He jumped off the back of the crab and looked around him, trying to figure out what his next course of action should be. His rumbling stomach decided for him. "Right, first order of business is food and water. Food. Hmm." He'd always been fond of seafood.The only problem was cooking the massive crustacean, although he guessed the points he'd earned might help him there. He'd reprimanded himself earlier, but he really was quite excited for this. Following the logic of his earlier Dismiss command, he said, "Skills."
He was blinded by a massive HUD taking up his entire field of vision and displaying an even larger list of Skills. At his command, it shrank down to a more manageable size and sorted the Skills into Mental, Physical, and Magical categories. Immediately, Magical caught his eye, as well as the Bloodmagic subcategory within it.
When he opened it, he momentarily wondered if there'd been some kind of glitch. It still showed all the same categories, but no more Bloodmagic. The skills seemed to be divided into tiers,although he only met the prerequisites for Tier 0, with many of the Skills listing "Dobridian Bloodmage" as a prerequisite.
Tier 0
Artisan Vitae: (+)
Cost: 5BP
Casting Time: 1s
Description: Create any tool (your mind can form a schematic for with blood. Tools last until broken or dispelled, and have the same strength as steel. Weight is equal to an equal volume of blood.
Bloodlance: (+)
Cost: 10BP
Casting Time: 1s
Description: Create a lance of 1m length with blood. Lance lasts until broken or dispelled, and has the same strength as steel. Weight is equal to an equal volume of blood. Deals 5-7 (ST) damage. Length can be varied at proportional cost (+/-1BP10cm-1)
Exploding Blood: (+)
Cost: 25BP
Casting Time: 1s
Description: Cause a pool or similar aggregation of blood worth 25BP to spontaneously explode into flames, dealing 12-17 (ST) damage.
While he had enough Points to get al three, he decided to conserve them and only get Exploding Blood so he could start a fire.
He tapped the little (+) sign next to Exploding Blood, followed by the "Accept" button which appeared at the bottom right afterwards. The symbol was replaced by (1/10) instead, which he guessed had something to do with leveling. "Next up, Attributes." Once more, a screen popped up in front of him, although he was used to it by now. This time, it showed a couple of tables.
Name
Amount
Modifiers
Health
98/100 (98%)
0 | 0%
H. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
Stamina
35/100 (35%)
0 | 0%
S. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
Mageburn
100/100 (100%)
0 | 0%
M. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
Name
Amount
Modifier
Strength (ST)
10 (+)
0 | 0%
Recovery (RE)
10 (+)
0 | 0%
Endurance (EN)
10 (+)
0 | 0%
Vigour (VI)
10 (+)
0 | 0%
Intelligence (IN)
10 (+)
0 | 0%
Willpower (WI)
10 (+)
0 | 0%
He made an educated guess as to what each of the Attributes did, and reasoned that ST and RE were most important for his purposes.However, he didn't see a BP stat anywhere. He considered Health being used as BP, but then realized he had no idea what the conversion ratio was between the two. "If it's 1:4, that might actually kill me. Dammit, looks like I'm gonna have to expend another point on Artisan Vitae. Safest bet right now." At some distance, a small rodent vaguely resembling a ferret was amusing himself with the human's frustration.
Wincing, he hit "Accept". Artisan Vitae acquired the same (1/10) as Exploding Blood. "Alright, now I guess it's time to...figure out how to use these. Goddammit. I didn't even check if I could use them." The ferret audibly giggled at that one. "I'm sure he'll be fine once he gets time to get used to it." He paced back and forth for a bit. "How do they always activate their powers in those webnovels? They just think about it, right? Yeah. Alright, let's try that."
He decided to try something basic for his first time. A small dagger. "That's a tool, right? Yeah. I'm assuming it goes off of my own definition of tool. That would make sense. Although...does that mean I can clone myself?" The joke wasn't that good, but it hit the ferret right in the funny bone, and he quite literally started rolling on the floor laughing. "It's been far too long since I've met someone who was able to take things in stride like that. Immortality really does a number on your sense of humour, doesn't it?"
He was expecting some kind of flashy effect. Some Blooddagger appearing in his hand or something. What he wasn't expecting was nothing. Nothing happened. He hit himself on the head. "It's Bloodmagic! It's gonna need some blood, dumbass!" The problem was, how much? "Well, I'm guessing if I just open up a small blood vessel, it'll draw whatever needs from inside me. I really hope 1BP isn't a full liter, or this is definitely going to kill me." He immediately knew how to open the needed blood vessel. He'd always had a terrible nail biting habit, and he had his fair shair of cuticle scabs. All it took was a satisfying (and only somewhat painful) peel of one of these and he was off to the races.
This time, the blood started drawing from the cut, albeit not fast by any means. The dagger didn't form instantly either. First, all the blood gathered up into a perfect sphere (thankfully much, much smaller than 5 dm3) before forming into a simple sanguine dagger, clearly very sharp. He held it in his hands. It was hard to believe he'd done that. He'd just made a dagger. Out of blood. And it was just as durable as steel. "Bloodmagic is awesome."
He looked around while weighing his brand-new creation, wondering what he'd do with it. Off in the distance, he spotted a small gathering of trees. Not too far, only about half a kilometer or so. He made it there in less than ten minutes, at which point he discovered that it was in fact a small forest. He made a mental note to explore this place further at a later date. For now, he walked up to one of the trees and used the extremely sharp knife to cut off a branch. Not wanting to totally shear any of them, he repeated this process about a dozen times before deciding to head back, hoping the crab hadn't been eaten by some wild scavengers.
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Thankfully, nothing had. Oblivious as the human was, every animal knew to listen to the ferret. And the ferret said no touching, so they all obeyed. Of course, now another problem presented itself. "That crab chitin looks really useful. Maybe I could sell it for money, or have it made into something even. Although that's a big maybe." He thought about it for a second and decided there was literally nothing to be lost here. "Oh, wait. I still haven't checked what the BP:Health ratio is. Attributes"
Name
Amount
Modifiers
Health
93/100 (93%)
0 | 0%
H. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
Stamina
41/100 (41%)
0 | 0%
S. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
Mageburn
100/100 (100%)
0 | 0%
M. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, so it's a 1:1 ratio of BP to Health. Good. Although I'd like it if I didn't have to open this window every time I wanted to check my Health, Stamina, or Mana." The universe obeyed, and he saw three bars spaced out evenly at the bottom of his vision. "I'm guessing Red is Health. Let's put that in the center. Yellow is Stamina. To the left. And Blue Mana to the right." His next order of business was somehow getting a piece of crab meat out without damagin the rest of the body, which was thankfully a lot easier than his other tasks, if a little more disgusting.
"Okay, that thing was still alive a few hours ago. That means blood, and sundry other grossness. I wonder if there's a skill for that?" He went back to Bloodmagic (he felt like the effects so far had been awesome enough to justify giving it first dibs) and scrolled down until he found a category called "Utility". He found a couple of seemingly quite useful Tier 0 spells.
Tier 0
Blooded Purification: (+)
Cost: 1BP/min
Range: 1m3
Casting Time: Continuous
Description: Emit pulses of purifying energy which cleanse filth, poison, and mundane disease.
Blooded Stasis: (+)
Cost: 15BP/day
Casting Time: Continuous
Description: Preserve any living body by encasing it within a Bloodmagical shell. Only works as long as the original caster is alive and able to provide BP to maintain the shell. Not affected by distance.
"Huh. I guess classical mechanics isn't a thing in this world. I really wanna get Blooded Stasis, it sounds really good. But I only have 1 skill point left. Dammit. Alright, fine! Blooded Purification it is! The disease and poison bits are gonna come in really useful in the long term." With a deep breath followed by a resigned sigh, he clicked the (+) icon and hit "Accept". "I'm not happy about it, but it'll help in the long run."
In fact, he was about to be very happy about it. He used the Blooddagger to make a small cut on the palm of his left hand, like he'd seen in TV shows. Well, only one TV show so far. But it was a good one. "Ow. Ow ow ow. That hurts like a bitch. Why did I think that was a good idea?" He placed the Blooddagger on the floor and gripped his wrist tightly. "At least I had the foresight not to Eren Jaegerbomb my fucking thumb. God, this hurts like a bitch." He turned his blood into a crowbar, with an axe on one end. A crowbaxe? No, a Bloodcrowbaxe! The name gave him a little respite from the awful pain in his hand. What gave him a lot more respite was watching the blood from his wound come together rapidly to form said Bloodcrowbaxe.
Without wasting time (mainly because more wasted time meant more thinking about his stupidity), he went to work addressing the giant crab in the room. The chitin plates which made up its shell were more like segmented plate armour than anything naturally occuring, which was great for him because it meant it was much easier to dismantle. Unfortunately, it was still a giant crab, which meant it still had blood and sundry grossness in its body, which had now ended up on his body.
He barely resisted his urge to vomit long enough to activate Blooded Purification. Pulses of red light flowed out from the cut in his palm, the blood all over him evaporating. "I feel like I have hepatitis. Well, it's either trust the magic or don't, and I don't think it really changes my chances of having contracted a terminal illness, so I'll trust it."
He noticed that his own blood wasn't evaporating like the crab's. While the viscera was washed away with each pulse, the cut seemed to be the font from which the pulses originated. "That's really cool." He took a moment to appreciate the minute distinction before going back to dismantling the crab. He decided to leave the pulse on, even if he was starting to feel like shit from all the blood loss.
About an hour later, he had in front of him two things. One was a pile of extremely heavy and damn near pristine Giant Crab chitin. The other was a deshelled Giant Crab, and he couldn't wait to cook the fucker. It was noon now, and he was really in the mood for a cookout. He used some more Health to make a shovel, but by now he was wondering how the hell he was even alive, let alone functioning with all the Health loss he'd sustained.
He dug a large pit and placed some of the branches he'd acquired to build a sort of grate. The rest he threw in the pit. As soon as he was done, he began tasting colours as he collapsed from the blood loss. "Maybe I should spend some of those points to help me recover some of this lost Health"
He opened up the Attributes window again and quickly put 30 points into Recovery without hitting "Accept". He then checked his H. Regen, which thankfully updated in real time.
Name
Amount
Modifiers
Health
30/100 (30%)
0 | 0%
H. Regen
200/day
0 | 0%
Stamina
39/100 (39%)
0 | 0%
S. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
Mageburn
100/100 (100%)
0 | 0%
M. Regen
50/day
0 | 0%
"Let's see...at 10 RE, I was regenerating 50/day. That's about...let's say 2/hour. I am not doing long division. So I'm getting about 0.2/hour/point. Which means I should have 200/day. Alright, checks out. Now, if only I could get these in hourly rates-" He hadn't finished the sentence before the HUD flickered and the table changed.
Name
Amount
Modifiers
Health
30/100 (30%)
0 | 0%
H. Regen
8/hour
0 | 0%
Stamina
39/100 (39%)
0 | 0%
S. Regen
2/hour
0 | 0%
Mageburn
100/100 (100%)
0 | 0%
M. Regen
2/hour
0 | 0%
"That means I should have enough to not kill myself by starting a campfire in about an hour and fifteen. Might as well go get some firewood while I wait. Ooh, and skewers too!" And he did exactly that for the next hour or so. He went back to the forest and cut off some more branches, gathering them in a pile. He also turned a couple of them into skewers for the meat (they were more like spears), to make it easier to cook. Afterwards, he rested his weary feet in the shade of the fortest canopy while watching his Health bar slowly tick up and thinking about the strange circumstances.
"I haven't really sat down and had a good think since I got here. I've been so hungry and exhausted and excited and confused that I never fully considered the implications of this. I can use magic. But I'm in another world. One I know nothing about. I doubt I can even speak the language. And money. I have no idea how that works either. No clue what denominations there are, or how much anything is worth. Hell, that's assuming currency exists. Whatever the case may be though, I'm gonna enjoy my new life here. Seems like monsters exist, so maybe I'll get by killing them. Or maybe there's old dungeons I could explore."
"That's all far in the future, though. Right now, I need to meet basic necessities. I've got food for the night, but I have no water. That should be a priority. I've been walking around a lot, so I'm pretty dehydrated. This is a forest, right? Maybe there's a creek or something somewhere. I've still got about half an hour left, why not?" He got up, grabbed his things, and made his way deeper into the forest. It wasn't long before he heard the sound of a flowing creek from only a few dozen meters away.
He hadn't realized just how thirsty he'd been until he saw the river. Reflexively, he got down on his knees and began sipping the ice cold water. Once he was done, he laid back against a nearby tree and wiped his wet mouth. "I never realized how sweet water could be. That was amazing. I need to get a bucket or something. I could probably make a Bloodbucket. No, I need the Exploding Blood a lot more. Can't let perfectly good crab go to waste. Maybe I could grab some fish?" He picked up one of the spear-skewers and waited till he could see a fish in the water. The creek was fairly slow, and he managed to spot the dark silhouette with ease. With a huge, overly-dramatic reel-up, he tossed it into the water.
To his surprise, it came bobbing up with a fish on it. He caught it before it could float too far. Looking at his Health bar, he said, "Eh, I've got a few minutes to kill. Let's try it!" Out of the 30 or so attempts, he only managed to catch three fish. Still, he had fun doing it and got some Stamina expenditure, which he knew meant Experience. "I wonder how much that actually netted me?
Name
Amount
Modifiers
Health
40/100 (40%)
0 | 0%
H. Regen
8/hour
0 | 0%
Stamina
39/100 (39%)
0 | 0%
S. Regen
2/hour
0 | 0%
Mageburn
100/100 (100%)
0 | 0%
M. Regen
2/hour
0 | 0%
"Looks like it evened out. Health is up though, which is good. Means I can finally have a meal in this world." He practically hopped back to his little "camp". Really, it was a giant crab, a pile of chitin, and a firepit in the middle of a field. But to him, it was the only home he'd known in the less than a day since he'd come here, so it held at least some sentimental value. When he returned, it was just past noon.
"Alright, moment of truth." He squeezed his left hand till the scab burst. "Still hurts like a motherfucker. I really need to find a healing spell or something." He dripped the the blood into his firepit. The derivation of BP from Health meant he could easily tell when he could stop from his Health bar. He focused, and a brilliant inferno burst out in the firepit. "Oh, hell yes!" He took a few steps back to try to avoid the immense heat of the crimson flames, but it weakened after a few seconds into something a little more conventional. "Barbecue time!"
He grabbed one of the skewers and stabbed it through one of the legs of the crab. With surprisingly little effort, he managed to rip off a sizable chunk. He carefully placed it on the grate he'd built earlier, letting it smoke and cook. At the same time, he placed the fish next to it too. The smell filling the air was truly exquisite, but he'd never been impatient. He waited for a few minutes while both the fish and the crab cooked, wallowing in the aroma in the meantime.
When they were finally done, he placed the fish off to the side on the pile of wood. He was about to take a bite when he remembered, "Hygiene first. Blooded Purification. 1 minute should be enough." In fact, 1 minute was severely overkill on cooked meat, but it was only 1BP, so he didn't mind.
The taste of Giant Crab was out of this world. It was smokey, fishy, chickeny, tender yet tough, all at once. It was a cornucopia of flavour. "Oh, I am so getting Blooded Stasis next level. This is too good to waste." Once he was done with the crab, he noticed a small icon in the corner of his vision, showing a shield with the emblem of a crab. When he looked at it, he felt its description. He didn't hear it, didn't see it, didn't even taste it. Just felt it. "Tough Skin for 1 hour after consumption." He was definitely getting Blooded Stasis now.
Once he'd had his fill of fish and crab, he lay down on his back and looked up at the clear afternoon sky. "I got so much done today. It's hard to believe it's only been one day. I guess, if I have the time, I'll make myself a few more tools. Let's see, I'll need a pickaxe, a hammer, a bucket, a hand drill, and a chest to carry it in. That's 5 items, so 25 BP. I could do that now, but I might die. Let's wait a bit."
And so, that's what he spent the rest of his first day in this world doing. The little ferret watched curiously. "What an interesting individual. He'll definitely do. Grow strong soon, my sweet prince, and kill me."
EXPERIENCE GAIN SUMMARY:
Stamina Expenditure: 10
Health Expenditure: 50
Current Experience: 90
Artisan Vitae: 17
Exploding Blood: 25
Blooded Purification: 70