“Ughhh…” Ember groaned, while her awareness slowly creeped back into her consciousness. As soon as she could think again her mind was bombarded by notifications. The alerts would pop up one after the other following each other so quickly that she could barely make out the first word before the next alert would take its place. The cacophony of information flooding her mana deprived brain only worsened the throbbing pain from the headache that started forming behind her eyes and the base of her skull when her mana dropped to only five points remaining. She pressed the tips of her pointer and middle fingers onto the side of her head. She started to add pressure and rub her temples in hopes of the action bringing her even the slightest form of relief. Luckily for her, her actions did slightly alleviate the pressure building up behind her eyes.
After giving herself a few moments for the pain in her head to become bearable she pulled herself up into a sitting position. She sat there with her knees wrapped in her arms, using her thighs as a headrest. “Jeez…” she complained while she lifted her head up to finally take in her surroundings. “I hate mana depletion…” she let out followed by a sigh. She rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times to get her eyes to clear up and focus. When they did she saw that she managed to keep herself from landing in the puddle of crystal jelly slime.
‘I couldn't have been any luckier.’ She thought to herself while observing the slop in front of her. She then spotted something small, about the size of a kernel of corn, reflecting the light back at her from a different angle than the rest of the clearish liquid mess in front of her.
‘...’ She scrunched her face up in serious compilation, her thoughts a mess of opposing ideas not helping her in the slightest to decide what to do.
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t touch it!’
‘Shiny’
‘What could it be?!?’
“Why does it have to be in the gross, slimy goooooop.” She whined, then lightly punched the ground beside her. “Tsk, Ouch” she complained after the soft underside of her fist landed on something pointy hiding in the grass next to her.
“Oh!” She exclaimed, after she saw that the pointy thing she landed on was a broken off stick from one of the trees nearby. ‘Heheh, Genius.’ She laughed to herself while she picked up the stick and used it to flick the little object until it was no longer submerged in slime. When she got it out of the putrid puddle she was perplexed by the piece of pinkish purple pyrite laying in front of her. The object was no larger than the nail on her pinkie finger, it looked like a small blocky crystal with a metallic surface that gave off a soft pink sheen when the light caught it just right.
‘Whatever it is, it's pretty. So I think I’ll just keep it as a memento from the first victim of my soon to be devised plan for the complete eradication of all of the slimes that live within walking distance from home.’ She paused. ‘Willow’s home… I can’t allow myself to get too comfortable here. I still have to find my way back home somehow. Which means Even if I wanted to stay I'd at least have to travel to find stronger things to fight. I don’t even want to imagine how many bunnies and slimes it would take to hit higher levels.’
Once she had collected the pretty piece of pyrite and stashed it in one of her zipper pockets she then wiped the residue from the stone off of her fingers with the grass. Then, after she could no longer feel the slick stickiness on her fingers, Ember made her first attempt to stand. Which promptly ended in failure. When she made it to her feet she felt the world spinning beneath her. The sudden case of vertigo coupled with intense dizziness caused her knees to buckle and her stomach to turn. Luckily she had just enough proprioception to send herself stumbling backwards to fall onto her butt and not her face.
“Oof…” She groaned in pain. “Spores! That freaking hurt.”
‘Alright Em… take it slow this time. No rush.’ She thought to herself in an attempt to slow her thoughts and clear her mind. ‘Take it easy this time, instead of trying to shoot straight up from a squatting position. Oh! Even better, where’s my staff?’ she asked herself while she searched around for where she dropped it.
“Ah! Gotcha!” She exclaimed, noticing the staff laying on the ground behind her. She then proceeded with her plan, this time she used her staff as a support to keep her standing while she waited for her eyes, brain, and stomach to all agree which way she was facing. In an attempt to calm the nausea she felt growing in the pit of her stomach she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the end of her staff. With the lack of visual stimuli, coupled with the grounding feeling of having a stable object to lean her head against, Ember was able to gain enough clarity to bring her stomach back to peace.
Ember stood in the same position for another three minutes before growing bored of standing still and slightly anxious from the thought of someone walking by and seeing her in her current goofy pose. She cracked one eye open to check if the world chose to stop dancing around her. She released a sigh of relief when she saw that her surroundings had finally stabilized.
‘I don't think I should try walking around just yet.’ she thought to herself. ‘So… I'll just lean against this tree and see how long I've been asleep.’ She took a few slow steps over to the closest tree to her and promptly let it take over the job of supplying her stability.
‘Metatron… stat…’ she started but then paused, as the memory of alerts firing off as she lost consciousness flooded back to her memory. ‘Metatron what did I miss when I passed out?’
[8 Pending Notifications]
“Oh.” she said, slightly taken aback by the amount. ‘I expected to see two or three, maybe even four but that's way too many. Seriously Metatron!’ she shouted in her mind. ‘How much worse can it get than being told you’ve hit zero mana and now the next hour is going to really suck? Oh let me guess… warnings I'm getting low? Just to point out my dumb decision?’
[...]
‘Fine… I'm done ranting.’ She thought in a huff. ‘Show me the missed notifications.’
[Mana Levels Critically Low]
“Yep…”
[Mana Depletion Limit Exceeded]
“Oh?” She cocked an eyebrow. “There’s a limit?”
[Shutting Down All Unnecessary Bodily Functions Until Sustainable Mana Levels Have Been Recovered]
“Okay wait… shutting down unnecessary bodily functions? All body functions are necessary. What do you consider to be necessary? Huh?
[Necessary Functions Are Prioritized As Such: Brain, Heart, Lungs.]
[Designated As Unnecessary In Extreme Cases: Digestion, Locomotion, Consciousness]
“Ah…” she gave a defeated sigh. ‘It would have still been nice to get a warning before I hit zero mana.’ She thought to her system in a grumble. ‘You know? Something that will catch my attention without distracting me too much.’
[Alert Set]
[Designate Capacity Limit]
‘Uhhh… five percent.’ She said nervously.
[Alert Set As: Blackout Imminent In (5% Maximum Mana Capacity)MP]
‘Okay, yeah. That’ll do it.’ she confirmed. ‘I’ll stop interrupting you for now, please continue.’
[Entering Mana Exhaustion]
[Experience Values Have Reached Threshold For Advancement]
[Congratulations Ember Abiss: Level 1 > Level 2]
“Hold up! Pause. Wait just one minute. What now?!?” She exclaimed in confusion. ‘Okay hurry up. what's next?’
[+1 Acuity(Race) +1 Fortitude(Race) +3 Free Stat Points]
[You Have Unlocked 1 Classless Skill Slot Please Select An Additional Skill]
“Yeah!!” She shouted out in joy while she punched the air in front of her. “First level up!”
Ember then proceeded to do a short happy dance before pulling up her status screen to divvy out her three free points.
[Name: Ember Abiss
Title: None
Race: Human
Age: 23
Level: 2
Class: “Locked”
Affinities: Rot, Nature, Void
Lifeforce: 50
Mana: 24/80
ki: 60
Alacrity: 5
Acuity: 8
Vitality: 5
Vigor: 5
Tenacity: 8
Fortitude: 6
Free Points: 3
Active Skills: 0/5
Passive Skill: 0/5
Classless Skills:1(2)/5
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Rot Aura - lvl 2 ]
Ember’s eyes grew wide when she saw her current mana total. “How long was I out?!? I only get around eightish mana an hour… So does that mean I've been out for three hours?!?” She then brought her hand up to hold the forehead of her drooping head. ‘I could have been attacked by something or someone while I was out like that. It was a stupid idea to use all of my mana. I know how much mana depletion sucked, and that should have been enough to stop me but nooo. I just had to use all of it…’ She berated herself. ‘And the worst part is that if it only took fifteen mana to kill it then it only had about seven lifeforce left. I could have smacked it seven more times and been done with it most likely.’
After a moment of silence she let out a deep sigh before returning to the distribution of her new points. ‘Focus Ember, Fo-cus. I’ve got three points and six attributes, I can rule out all of the non magic based ones. I am definitely going to focus on magic seeing how that's actually a choice here. Do I want a bigger mana pool or faster regen?’
In the end she went with her gut choice and put one point in Tenacity and the remaining two into Acuity so she could increase her mana regeneration rate. Her justification to herself being that she could just raise her acuity until she regenerated her mana faster than her aura could burn it. With her decision concluded she gave her status another once over before moving on to the last notification she saw.
[Name: Ember Abiss
Title: None
Race: Human
Age: 23
Level: 2
Class: “Locked”
Affinities: Rot, Nature, Void
Lifeforce: 50
Mana: 24/90
ki: 60
Alacrity: 5
Acuity: 10
Vitality: 5
Vigor: 5
Tenacity: 9
Fortitude: 6
Free Points: 0
Active Skills: 0/5
Passive Skill: 0/5
Classless Skills:1(2)/5
Rot Aura - lvl 2 ]
‘Okay Metatron.’ She thought to herself. ‘Show me my available skills please.’
[Available Classless Skills]
[Void Pocket: user is able to open a small rift to the void, allowing you to store non-living items.] (Void, Storage, Utility)
[Skill Evolution]
[Acuity of 10 or higher]
[Asked someone over 100 questions about different items within 8 hours]
[Has skipped sleep over 100 time in the pursuit of new Knowledge]
[Skill Identify Plant > Identify]
[Identify: user can pull up basic system information on people plants and items. Information loses accuracy the higher the target’s level is than the user’s.](Arcane, Nature, System,Utility)
[New Skills Unlocked]
[Used Your mana affinity to forcefully boost the growth rate of any plant/fungi/lichen]
[Has Killed an immobile target]
[Has been out run/maneuvered by over 10 foes]
[Mana is higher than Ki]
[Ensnare - Send your mana into the ground to have nature spring forth to trap and slow your enemies.] (Nature, Rot, Area)
[Has caused the explosion of a corpse using only mana]
[Has caused the death of an a foe with the corpse of another]
[Has only used Free stat points on mental attributes]
[Corpse Explosion - Cause any corpse you can see up to 100 feet away. If anything is killed by the original explosion there is a chance for the new corpse to trigger the skill again at no cost to the user.] (Rot, Death, Area)
Ember was overwhelmed by all of the information flying through her mind. She used the tree as a guide to slide down into a sitting position so she could dig into the information she was presented with. One of the things that bothered her the most about it though was the individual triggers for unlocking some of these skills.
She wrinkled her nose and scrunched her face in contemplation. ‘Some of these I get, on my first day here I'm sure I asked Thorn way over one hundred questions that day, if you count charades… but then, just on the next line. Even though I haven't been here for over one hundred days and I didn't have the system on earth, it knows that I've skipped sleeping over one hundred times just to study or because I got caught up in an interesting topic and hyper focused on it until the sun was up. How can it know something from when I was still in school? Does it know everything I know because it's in my head? If so… I do not like the thought of that…’
She shook her head from side to side, her hair started flinging bits of grass and debris out of it from the motion. ‘Focus on skill, don't worry about how it was unlocked. For now… So Identify Plants got a general purpose upgrade. That sounds really cool and is a go to in a lot of magic based games and stories or so it seems.’ She scratched her head and tilted it to the side. ‘Should I really take a utility skill this early on? I think I might pass it up again, at least this time.’
She mentally flung identify to the back of her mind and continued to read down the list to see what new skills she had unlocked. ‘Oooo new skills.’ She thought excitedly, ‘Okay this one is at least using moments from this planet and not earth to determine if it would unlock. I remember that crazy gutrot mushroom, I guess this answers my question. It was the cause of its strange reaction and rapid disintegration of the log it was on. The immobile target was one of the rab- jackalope that Thorn paralyzed for me most likely and the last point is just rubbing my nose in the fact that I can't catch the jackalope without an ambush.’ “Bah!” She exclaimed, still feeling irritated with how many times the jackalopes would run between her legs and into a hole or through a bush.
“Nope, No, Don’t want it.” By the time she read the first line of the unlock requirements for the final skill she knew it would be related to her least favorite aspect of her awesome aura skill. ‘Making huge gross messes out of bodies is not what I want to be known for. Plus I'm like ninety percent certain that if I took that skill I would be offered some sort of evil sounding class like necromancer or warlock. I want something cool or at least not creepy sounding, but I'm getting way too far ahead of myself. I just turned level two ten is a long way away sadly.’
[New Classless skill selected]
[Skill Ensnare added to skill list.]
With much deliberation she finally made up her mind on which skill would work best for how she wants to grow and so she went with the most useful to her current needs. Right now she wasn't hurting for information on anything, nor did she need any more storage than what she could hold in her pockets. To her deepest disappointment the only fully offensive skill offered to her was an automatic absolute no. She absolutely hated the aftermath from an accidental corpse explosion so she had no intentions of making that a triggered skill instead of just an unlucky accident.
'There is no way in hell I'm letting my future skills and class be based around dead bodies or spreading filth from said body exploding. I'm much happier with ensnare, maybe it'll unlock a Nature or plant based witch class for me.' She thought to herself. 'Eheheheh I need to find a jackalope now.' She laughed to herself maniacally.
"Oh." She paused. 'Metatron can I get the details on Ensnare now that it's unlocked?'
[Ensnare - Send your mana into the ground to have nature spring forth to trap and slow your enemies. 10 MP Per 1 square foot of area affected up to 100 square feet. Additional costs based on toughness of the terrain. EX: Soil, clay, stone, ect.] (Nature, Rot, Area)
'Uhhh... is that it? How much Additional cost? Is there an overtime cost like keeping my aura active?' She questioned.
[Ensnare - Send your mana into the ground to have nature spring forth to trap and/or slow your enemies. 10 MP Per 1 square foot of area affected up to 100 square feet. Additional costs based on toughness of the terrain (EX: Soil, clay, stone, ect.) up to an added 10MP. Highest toughness material currently able to be penetrated: sandstone.] (Nature, Rot, Area)
'Oh! Awesome, thank you.' She said with a smile while she read over the addition to her skills description. 'I want to try it out now... but where?' She pondered.
"Ah-ha!" She exclaimed when the perfect idea hopped into her mind. "The Bunnies." She said with a devious grin.
Now that she had finalized all of her selections and decided on her next target, she once again attempted to gather herself up onto her feet. In the attempt she used the tree that had served as her back rest while she finalized her level up, in concordance with her trusty staff and was successfully able to make it to her feet. She stood still for a moment while she enjoyed the cool breeze blowing by. She then took a look around spinning her head slowly so she could check that the vertigo was truly gone. A few deep breaths later she concluded that she would be able to carry on without succumbing to motion sickness just from walking.
After what felt like twenty minutes of walking Ember finally spotted the pond she was seeking. When she approached it she saw that the water inside was crystal clear, she could see the rocks with algae growing on them dotting the bed of the pond. While she admired how deeply she could peer into its depths she also began to furrow her brow. What she had first thought of as a sign of a well taken care and clean body of water she was now beginning to question herself.
'This entire pond and the area around it are way to clean...' She thought as the furrow in her brow grew deeper. 'Something is off but I can't seem to put my finger on it. This whole place feels fishy...' As her thoughts clicked into place she scoured the pond searching for any fish swimming or hiding in it. 'That's what I felt was off... there is no life in the water. No fish, no turtles, frogs, or even tadpoles. Hell, I don't even see any bugs landing on the surface now that I'm looking for them.'
Ember slowly approached the pond getting just close enough to reach it with her staff. She then tried to test the water, checking if it may be dangerous or possibly even corrosive, by sticking the tip of her staff into the water. She left it to rest in the shallows for a moment watching while small ripples danced across the surface whenever she shifted her stance or adjusted her grip. She kept this up for about five minutes before she saw what she believed to be signs of movement. It looked like little glimmers and streaks flashing through the water, reminding her of minnows catching the sun in the shallows of the lake she used to fish at, but whenever she would try to focus on the glimmering lights there was never anything there. She then tried to jab her staff in deeper to disturb the water and hopefully stir up some movement dirt as well, but when she thrusted the staff forward she felt much more resistance than she had ever imagined water could have. She then ripped her staff back out of the water slightly panicked by the unsettling sensation she felt from the jab.
"No..." She said under her breath. "Please be wrong, please be wrong..." She began to plead as she backed up, putting more and more distance between herself and the pond. She only made it four or five feet back before her worst fear manifested before her. She froze when she saw the surface of the water begin to ripple and quiver, the intensity growing like the water was being churned from the inside. At that point she had already started to turn to leave but paused with a gasp before letting out a short sharp scream and booking it away as fast as she could run. When she looked back behind her she saw what looked to be twenty to thirty crystal jellies oozing their way out of the water, she could see the spreading out to search for the cause of the disturbance. Luckily she was already far from the area where they were currently oozing and rolling about in search of her. She turned away from the pond and continued in a slower yet still fast paced walk to head back in the direction of town.
'Not today... It was a slog to take down one of those things, I know I'm nowhere near strong enough to try that on my own. At least not right now.' She thought to herself determined to grow stronger and return again when she could handle them. "Oh!" She exclaimed as a thought popped into her head. 'I'll invite Thorn. I bet those oozing globs of liquid are weak to electricity.' She thought while laughing to herself. 'But first I'll find somewhere for lunch then back to collecting jackalope horns... or at least trapping some in my new skill.'