The three level ups would be looked at later, James decided. For now he had to run.
His legs were pounding against the ground, making the quarter inch deep gash in his leg bleed even more. (Sorry Europeans I recognize meter and centimeter as the superior measurement, but it is a fault of my upbringing that I default to foot and inch.)
He needed to get far away from that sound, but the worst thing is that he knew that the sounds were getting closer. The yelps had stopped a few minutes back, but the booming sound, combined with the cracking of bushes and branches was still there.
He thought for ways to stop something that big. It was probably following by smell, but there was no guarantee that binding up his wound would stop that. Added to that he didn't know what he could bind it up with, so that was a non starter.
He could allocate his 6 free points from his two level ups, and that would probably help, but he needed a way to escape. So he sighed and slowed down a bit to pull up his system window to allocate the points. Truly though, he was excited that he would be able to go faster. 4 went into Agility, and 2 went into Strength. Satisfied with the changes, he closed the window and sped up.
The change was noticeable to James. He was racing through the trees, ducking through branches. He felt like he could catch a deer and wrestle it to the ground. He still wasn't outrunning his pursuer, especially now that his leg was getting whipped by the undergrowth, but he felt exhilarated. Pain Resistance leveled once again, and gradually he became used to the feeling.
After about 5 minutes of running, James started to flag. 'I didn't think through this,' he thought. Being caught up in his running, he didn't notice his legs start to hurt. 'Imagine me on the cross country team with this kind of speed though.'
Of course, he would still be beaten by a senior from a neighbouring school or something, but he would be in the top 3 sophomores in his city definitely.
He still felt guilt for beating up that wolf. It had seemed like such an obvious decision before, and he probably would have died if he didn't attack it, but if the wolf had just been sniffing around, who knows what he would have done. 'I need some sort of rule. I don't want to wait for something to kill me, but if I am attacked by a sapient, I should probably try to communicate' he decided.
Now that that was thought through, he needed to do something. The pursuer behind him was still audible, as it had been for the past 5 minutes. It wasn't more than 100 yards away, so James looked around for somewhere to hide.
He didn't want to directly fight whatever this thing was, so he was hoping it would eventually give up if he hid long enough.
He quickly discounted anything on the ground. With his luck so far, the thing would just stomp on it. As he couldn't keep running unless he wanted to find another spot, and that also looked ruled out because of the loud sounds whatever it was was making getting frighteningly close, the only way was up.
James looked at a tall pine tree near him. He wasn't too worried about the thing climbing trees, but he was worried about it knocking a tree down. The pine tree looked sturdy enough, and plus he could almost see the path of destruction the thing was making the sounds were so close. Without further thought, he jumped to the nearest branch.
With his new 32 Strength, he did a pull-up and easily got onto the branch. The first branch was almost 5 feet off of the ground, but the rest were clustered together and he could clamber around easily. He made it almost a quarter way up the tall tree before he heard a BOOM like thunder and a quieter Craaaack below him. He looked down, and saw his first magical beast.
It was a boar with steel hooves and tusks. These weapons were stained with the wolves' blood, with barely of its own blood anywhere on the boar's body. There were a few scratches on it, but it was mostly untouched by the massacre. It must have been attracted by the blood and the noises. James shuddered to think of what would have happened to him if he had dragged the fight out just a little longer.
Then, as the boar readied for another kick, he saw the most terrifying thing he had ever had the displeasure to have nightmares about. It had sharp, bloody, steel teeth. They looked too big for the boar, and stretched its face to the side as if it was constantly smirking or grimacing. james clutched the branch tighter. He did not want to go down there. He had cried everything out, but seeing a nightmare boar made him tremble in fear again.
Identifying it, he was greeted with a very informative window.
Steelskin Boar Lvl ?? (Mature) (Status effects hidden because of low level and low Identify level)
The only things he gleaned was that the only aspect of the boar that didn't appear to be metal apparently was, according to this window. He had no idea what to do with this information, and cursed himself for not even using [Identify] on the trees he passed on the way here. That sparked an idea.
Tearing his gaze away from the nightmare boar - a much more appropriate name - he used [Identify] on other trees he could see.
Pine Tree
Well. Another! This time a different species!
Pine Tree
Checking his status, the [Identify] skill was at 80%. 'One more!' he thought.
Pine Tree
Ding!
Identify has reached Beginner 2!
James focused back on the boar, who had just finished another earth-shaking hit against the tree. It didn't seem to notice him, instead mindlessly following his trail. He wondered what kind of class you would have to get to be able to knock down a tree and get beserker tracking skills. But that was a question for civilization! Right now he had to focus on surviving. He released the branch he had in a death grip slightly so he could see through the branches.
Steelskin Boar Lvl ?? (Mature) (Status effects hidden because of low level and low Identify level) (Obvious weaknesses hidden because of low level and low Identify level) Obvious Resistances: Physical damage
'Thanks, Mr. Obvious.' James thought. It really meant obvious when it said obvious didn't it. He was not discouraged though. He had already beaten a juvenile wolf. What was a metal boar to him, who would become the greatest swordsman in the multiverse?! He identified one of the trees he was looking at before.
Sweet Pine
He checked his [Identify], and to his relief it had gone up by a small percentage. He went on a [Identify] spree, but found that identifying the same thing twice would not grant percentages. Then he felt a creaking.
He looked down frantically, and realized that during his discovery the boar had broken through almost an eighth of the trunk. He thought that he had picked a strong tree! He quickly broke off a branch, but realized he didn't know what he was going to do with it. His leg and arm still hurt, so he definitely couldn't get in a fight. And even if he was in top shape, the Steelskin Boar would still wipe the floor with him (hehe that rhymed) in a fair fight. There was literally no advantage to be had physically over the boar, so he had to use his superior human intelligence.
His first idea was using [Identify], but he probably wouldn't get any information about weaknesses unless he exploited them himself beforehand, and at that point it would become useless. There had to be-
James slapped his forehead. It was so OBVIOUS in hindsight. He had to use his superior human Intelligence. He opened his status screen, and focused on changing his [Beginner Fighter] class. The only problem he had was with the warning at the top of the class status screen.
Available Classes (You may reset your class to a class that you have unlocked at any time, but be warned that you will most likely die if you have made significant gains in Physical statistics.)
He didn't think that his 2 levels in fighter would make too much of a difference in statistics, but he took a deep breath and checked his status screen over one last time before he changed his class.
General Skills Name: James Falksfield Class Skills
Class: Beginner Fighter Active Passive Race: Human (3 free points / lvl) Heavy Swing - Beginner 1 (0%) Improvised Weapons - Beginner 2 (43%) Lvl 2 (>75%) Elegar forest, Elegar [Kharth] Charged Stab - Beginner 1 (0%) Calm - Beginner 2 (57%) Str 29 Agi 40 Intimidation - Beginner 2 (70%) Fighting - Beginner 1 (68%) Vit 16 End 21 General Skills Int 28 Wis 18 Dreamer Instrument - Advanced 2 (31%) Will 21 Char 26 Runner Resurrected HP 123/160 MP 70/70 Storyteller - Novice 1 (47%) Long-Distance Runner Resistances Literate - Demigod 4 (5%) Gamer - Intermediate 2 (71%) Pain Resistance lvl 5 (>50%) English - Very Advanced 3 (36%) Celestan - Intermediate 5 (0%) Identify - Beginner 2 (64%) Sprint - Intermediate 5 (30%)
He still felt both apprehensive and reluctant about doing this. For one thing, he felt much stronger and faster than before. He was sure the system wouldn't punish him for getting 2 levels up in fighter though... right? Plus he was so close to Level 3. Maybe he would have gotten a new skill that could help him here, but still, switching to [Beginner Mage] would be the best choice.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
The class window was the same as last time, just with [Beginner Fighter] gone and a class called [Apprentice Enchanter] moved up to 5th place. James glanced through the list of available classes once again, but nothing was better than [Beginner Mage] in terms of stat gains. He didn't have time to take a deep breath, so he switched to [Beginner Mage] right as the tree started tipping over.
The pain was excruciating. His muscles shrank, and his skin pulled tight over it again. James fell from his perch, but luckily the tree twisted as it fell, landing him on the other side of the trunk from the Steelskin Boar. The transformation was almost complete, with the pain moving onto his legs. He heard several Dings, but couldn't read them and after a few seconds the blue screens faded away.
When it was finally finished, his muscles were twitching and he couldn't move. James heard someone screaming, and then he realized it was himself. He immediately shut up, and wondered why he wasn't dead yet. Then, as his hearing came back, he heard a booming sound. His muscles finally stopped hurting enough to pull himself up, and he opened his status window.
General Skills Name: James Falksfield Class Skills
Class: Beginner Mage Active Passive Race: Human (3 free points / lvl) Mana Bolt - Beginner 1 (0%) Mana Sense - Beginner 1 (0%) Lvl 0 Elegar forest, Elegar [Kharth] Mana Shield - Beginner 1 (0%) Mage Intuition - Beginner 1 (0%) Str 22 Agi 36 Arcane Strength- Beginner 1 (0%) Split Mind - Beginner 1 (0%) Vit 16 End 21 General Skills Int 28 Wis 18 Storyteller - Novice 1 (47%) Instrument - Advanced 2 (31%) Will 21 Char 26 Literate - Demigod 4 (4%) Gamer - Intermediate 2 (71%) HP 113/160 MP 70/70 English - Very Advanced 3 (36%) Celestan - Intermediate 5 (0%) Resistances Identify - Beginner 2 (64%) Sprint - Intermediate 5 (30%) Pain Resistance lvl 7 (>50%) Titles Dreamer Runner Resurrected Long-distance Runner
Tears streamed down his face and blurred his vision so much that he had to close his eyes to look at his [Status] more clearly. Then the booming sound in his ears stopped, and it occured to him that the whole reason he changed classes was to kill the boar. He closed the window to look.
It didn't seem like anything was moving though. All of the surrounding animals had been scared away by the Steelskin, and the tree had settled into the ground. Luckily he was only 10 feet up, so he didn't have any broken bones after checking himself over. He stood up fully and peered over the tree - when he picked the tall pine tree, he picked a sturdy one. It was almost 6 feet in diameter, and the boar's hits had still taken out enough of a chunk for the tree to fall down.
When he looked over the fallen tree, he saw the boar trapped under the tree. He would have laughed if everything wasn't so painful. Apparently while the boar was resistant to physical damage, it still couldn't handle a giant pine tree falling on top of it.
Then, as he looked closer, he saw the boar's chest rising and falling. The area around the boar was slightly dug out, and the tree had several places where the bark was gouged out. It seemed the boar had tried to escape, but had eventually given up. The boar also had a glowing light near its stomach that had not been there before. the head was completely trapped, so it couldn't see James.
Gathering his courage, he walked around the tree - no reason to alert the boar that he was here - and checked his status screen again. He reviewed a few of his new mage skills now that he was sure he was a little out of danger.
Mana Bolt - Beginner 1 (0%) Use a focus to fire mana out in a compacted weapon form. A basic skill that every new mage knows that deals 5*(Wis/4) damage. 5 mana.
The description was ambiguous as to what he needed, but he definitely needed mana for it. He didn't know what it meant by a focus though. It probably meant some sort of staff, but he didn't have one right now. James was about to try to fire it at a tree with a raised finger when he paused. Wouldn't it be better to use it on the boar? He turned towards the boar and raised his hand in a finger gun. James felt a little silly doing this, but maybe it would help as a focus.
He tried to feel for his mana pool, and was surprised when he was able to locate it with his mind immediately. It felt like a pool of silvery-blue liquid in his mind. He envisioned a small bit of it of it rising up in his mind, and tried to "guide" it from his brain to his finger. It reached his finger, and he pushed it out. When he focused back on the real world, he saw a puff of the same silvery blue that was the color of the light within the boar and the color of the pool inside his mind coming out of his finger.
Checking his status, he saw that 3 mana had been used. The skill said 5 mana, so he guessed that he had not used enough mana. This time, when he envisioned the pool, he used the void around it to divide it into 14 equal sections, with one of these sections mostly gone. he emptied one of the full sections and guided it through his finger. He also tried focusing outwards, hoping that the passive [Split Mind] would help.
And it definitely did. It was clearly designed for mages, and for a moment he was able to forget about the pain, focusing only on his magic. He saw the mana being guided to his finger, then watched it seep out. He slapped his forehead lightly as he understood the problem. He wasn't compacting the magic.
James emptied another pool, this time packing it together into a spike-like shape. He guided it through his arm, watching the mana in fascination from outside, before halting it at his finger.
He tried compacting it further, and got some success before he pushed it out, this time using the mana's own energy to fuel its flight. It sailed towards the boar surprisingly fast before impacting on the boar's thick side.
The boar squealed. It shook around, and thrashed harder than it had before.
James's heart skipped a beat as it managed to remove everything but its head from under the tree. He quickly formed another bolt and pushed it through his fingers. The last bolt should only have done around 20 damage, but the clearly much stronger boar had apparently been very hurt by it.
He pushed another bolt through, and it had the same effect with the boar even angrier. The boar was almost out, and James cursed himself for not thinking his plan through.
All he could do now was fire more, and fire he did. During the onslaught of mana bolts - by the end he was firing 1 around every 3 seconds - he leveled [Mana Bolt] three times, all the way up to Beginner 4.
The boar luckily had trouble getting its tusks out, and eventually succumbed to the mana bolts. James knew because he got the notification after his fifteenth. Ding! Ding! Ding!...
You have killed [Steelskin Boar] Lvl 26. More experience is awarded for killing an enemy 20 levels above you.
Lvl up! 3 free points are awarded and +3 Int.
Lvl up! 3 free points are awarded and +3 Int.
Lvl up! 3 free points are awarded and +3 Int.
Lvl up! 3 free points are awarded and +3 Int.
James cautiously crept closer. It wasn't moving and wasn't breathing, but he fired another mana bolt at it to make sure. it impacted with a hollow thump, and only then did James venture to touch it.
The skin did not feel like steel, lending more credence to his nightmare boar name, and he figured he might be able to cut it off with a sharp rock. But first, he finally had time to examine his status more in depth. He sat down and leaned against the trunk, getting ready for some stat allocation
.