Nick walked slowly through the trees, his gait almost human-like if seen from a distance. Luna silently trailed behind him, blending into the shadows almost imperceptibly.
The moment that his leg had finished healing, Nick had set off in a random direction away from the road. He had no idea what those men were capable of, and the fact that Luna was terrified of them scared him too, although he didn't show it.
"So what are you going to do now?" asked Luna, finally breaking the silence.
"Is there any way for me to talk and hear verbally again?" asked Nick in response.
"You were only able to do that before when you were human because you had ears and stuff inside them, organs specifically suited for these tasks," replied Luna thoughtfully. "There might be a skill that allows you to communicate verbally, but I've never heard of one, and I doubt getting it would be easy."
Nick mulled over this for a moment before suddenly realizing something. "Wait, don't I have a skill that can copy stuff? I could use it on a person to basically make myself physically human! There aren't any identity theft laws here, right?"
Luna shrugged uncomfortably at the thought. "It seems wrong to do that-"
"Morality is relative, it'll be fine," he replied.
Luna sighed helplessly and they continued onwards.
About an hour later, they were still continuing onwards.
2 hours later, they were still continuing onwards.
3 hours later, they had finally stopped, but only because Luna needed to rest.
"Is there no other way to reach civilization? This is incredibly boring," asked Nick with irritation.
"We could have followed the people who massacred the other cores and have a way to sense you," replied Luna sarcastically. "It's only been a few hours, we'll find something eventually. Have you made a plan yet for when we do find people?"
"That's a future me problem. Ergo, future me will deal with it."
Luna took a few steps back from the idiot in front of her.
"How'd I get stuck with a failure like you? What have I done to deserve this?" asked Luna mournfully.
"Wait a minute. How do attribute points work? I just put them all into Intelligence, since it was my highest stat already," asked Nick, ignoring Luna's complaints.
"Oh yeah! I knew I was forgetting something important!" replied Luna in surprise. "You just pick an attribute, and your points will go into those attributes. Gains are linear. What do your current stats look like?"
Nick quickly pulled up his status to check his stats.
Intelligence: 57
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 3
Willpower: 7
Precision (Special): 2
"Well my charisma is a 3-"
"Understandable, explains your personality."
"My Precision is a 2-"
"You probably got a point from making a few golems.
"My willpower is a 7-"
"Not abysmal, but still pretty bad.
"My Wisdom is a 5-"
"Your stats are unusually low. Most people average out a 10 in their mental stats. Precision isn't a mental stat, so you have an excuse for that, but the rest of your stats are kind of sad, to be honest."
"...And my intelligence is a 57."
Luna fell silent for a moment as she tried to process what he had just said.
"You're joking right? Your base intelligence can't be that high," said Luna, finally breaking the silence. "You'd be a demi-Paragon if that was true. It can't be. There's never been an Intelligence Paragon…"
"A Paragon? It could just be someone with a high base stat, but there's probably other aspects to it as well," thought Nick to himself. He had surreptitiously learned how to hide his thoughts from Luna, which allowed him some mental privacy. Luna had also known how to do this, which was evident due to the long breaks between thoughts he sensed from her. This had originally clued him in about hiding your thoughts, and it had just been a matter of trial and error after that.
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"When you complete level 5, you'll be awarded by the System for everything that you've done beforehand. Most people just get some Common and Uncommon accolades from their childhood, and in rare cases, well Rare accolades," said Luna finally, her mental voice still shaky.
"That's great and all, but what are accolades? And how many rarities are there?"
"Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic are the ranks for basically everything here. Items, difficulty of a task, Skills, etc. You don't see these in your status until you get past level 5 as well. Accolades determine how effective you are at certain things. The accolades you get at level 5 more or less determine what you can do for the rest of your life because they change how effective certain things are. For example, your health will go down to one once accolades are distributed because the vitality to health ratio will get significantly worse. Stats that are between five and fifteen don't change, but anything below or above gets an accolade related to it."
Luna took a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing. "If you can get a stat to 100 before the System assigns the base accolades, you will be given a mythic accolade, Paragon. You only need to gain 3 more intelligence naturally to be able to become a Paragon."
"Isn't that still a lot though? If an average person has a 10 in each attribute, that's thirty percent of their intelligence, and I don't think that there's any quick way to get that much smarter," responded Nick. While it sounded great in principle, assuming that being a Paragon was a good thing, Nick had spent the better part of his life studying and understanding the unknown, and he was just a few years away from retiring before coming to this strange new world. If he did the math, he had only gotten about 12 intelligence per decade of high level research, which seemed to be very little.
"Intelligence is gained through learning. It's the easiest stat to improve quickly for someone like you, who doesn't know much about Cirial. It also improves the speed at which you learn stuff if you activate the attribute, which I'll show you how to do in a second. On top of that, you're in a unique place to gain a lot of intelligence because of your lack of information about this world. Information about the System, which is called System Lore, improves intelligence way faster than ordinary things, so if you put all of this together you could probably gain several intelligence points within a couple of days, although it will slow down after that."
"Alright, fine. I hope this Paragon accolade is worth it."
"Oh it will be. Think activate stat: Intelligence to well, activate it. So anyways, the System Lore. The System predates all known sentients, including the gods, and has, as far as we know, either infinite or effectively infinite power. There's a limitless amount of…"
"Can I have the abridged version?"
"Nope, it would be less efficient. So like I was saying, the System has…"
...
Zain ran as the massively oversized wolf chased him. It was twice as tall as him despite it being a quadruped.
He should have never accepted that deal. Being sent to a magical world wasn't as great as it had seemed at the time. The wolf had seen him seconds into his arrival. All he had were two skills and a black medieval sword, and one of the skills didn't even do anything!
He risked a glance back at the wolf and used his first skill.
Perfect Analysis used.
Battle Analysis has been determined to be the most useful in the current situation.
Time has been frozen temporarily.
Name: Unnamed
Species: Dire Wolf of the Light
Type: Alpha
Level: 56
Strengths: Oversized, Sharp claws(level 5), Sharp teeth(level 5), impenetrable fur(level 5), Skill(Light Rend)
Weaknesses: Poison, Fire, Dark
Probability of victory: <1%
Probability of escape without victory: 0%
Time Resumed.
Zain stumbled as time resumed, which threw off his balance. There had been a root that he hadn't noticed before in front of him, and he spun before falling to the ground.
The wolf didn't stop, although Zain thought that it seemed to be smirking at him as it got closer.
"So this is it then."
As if in answer, the wolf sped up once more, confirming that it hadn't really been trying before. Zain took out his sword and held it right in front of him as the wolf loomed before him, hoping to take it with him.
The wolf attempted to stop as it saw the sword pointed at its throat but its momentum carried it forwards, skewering it right before it landed on Zain, crushing his body completely.
Sword of the Demon King's Passive ability activated.
You have killed Level 56 Alpha Dire Wolf of the Light.
You have solo killed a being more than 50 levels above you. You have gained the accolade Giant Slayer 5.
You have died.
Reset has activated.
Error: No Save Point detected. To create a save point think Create Save Point.
Resetting back to the moment that Reset was gained.
Reset complete.
Zain opened his eyes again to see that he was back where he had first been dropped off in this world, completely unharmed and whole.
"What? How! Was that teleportation or someth-"
His thoughts were interrupted by a snarl coming from behind him. Nick slowly turned around to see the exact same wolf coming at him from the exact same spot that he had seen it last time. It also appeared to be uninjured again.
He took a shaky step back but tripped over a root behind him, causing him to fall backwards.
The dire wolf rushed at him as he attempted to scramble back, but he realized his attempt was futile when his back hit a tree. The dire wolf slashed at his throat, before stabbing a claw through his head.
You have died.
Reset has activated.
Error: No Save Point detected. To create a save point think Create Save Point.
Resetting back to the moment that Reset was gained.
Reset complete.
The second that Zain was Reset back, he dropped to the ground as fast and silently as he could. He waited for a few seconds to ensure that the dire wolf hadn't noticed him, and then began to slowly crawl behind a tree. After waiting for another excruciating slow minute, he got up and started to sprint away from where the wolf probably was.
Several minutes later, he stopped breathlessly to lean against a tree. Remembering the System message that he got, he mentally thought "Create Save Point."
Save Point Created.
Finally safe, he took a moment to think about Reset.
"So this skill allows me to time travel back to a save point. Maybe this second chance won't be as bad as I thought," he said out loud before pausing to consider something. "Wait, so what am I supposed to do now?"