The rest of his jaunt down the mountain was thankfully uneventful, with only a few more close calls that could have sent him careening down the mountainside. After saving his life with the spell, he had the idea of how to potentially fly, if given enough mana, and his small experiments even had limit success. The spell was able to push him off the ground if projected out of his feet, so theoretically he should be able to produce enough lift, he would just need a gargantuan supply of mana.

However, flight ignored the issue of the opposing forces against his body, each push strained his muscles, leaving bruises on the soles of his feet from the amount of force required to keep him in the air. Not to mention the extensive practice required, knowing when and where to push himself at all times to avoid planting his face into the ground. So while the idea was interesting, it was completely out of his reach, but it did get him thinking about other methods of flight that were a bit more achievable.

Flying was never a dream of his, but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t want to. He fantasized about being able to clear the entire plateau in minutes, instead of taking two entire days to climb down. Glaring at the surrounding plateaus, he felt insignificant, gigantic rock walls boxing him in on all sides.

His glare melted into a small smile as a flock of strange multicolored birds flew overhead, no two having the same hue, singing with short chirps, part of the forests' song. It was a small reprieve, especially since it had been absent up on the plateau, since Fallon seemed to scare off any wildlife other than the fish that he survived off of. Basking in the sounds of his surroundings, he couldn’t seem to fully relax, constantly feeling an anxious pressure in his chest. The spider was still fresh in his memory as he pushed through the woods, watching his step for snakes and thorns.

The valley’s forests were much thicker compared to the plateau or any of the other place he had been; thick vines covered the forest floor and choked out everything underneath, while tree canopies blocked the sun. Despite all the flora and exotic birds, it didn’t look like any rainforests he saw on TV, it was more temperate, but still teaming with life. He kept his head on a constant swivel, eyes flickering back and forth to try and watch every direction at once as he abused [Arcane Eyes].

I’ve got a few hours before the sun sets, need to find a place to sleep.

Keeping up his skill, Salim swept the forest, only spotting smaller critters, which quickly skittered away from him the moment he got too close. There was a brief moment where he had spotted a larger mana signature through the trees, but thankfully he was able to hide up a smaller tree and let it pass. Other than that, though, his trip was more of the usual, pushing through branches and trying to avoid rough terrain by stepping on the vines that littered the area.

After only an hour, he began to hear the distinctive croaking of a frog, long ribbets that were echoed by its fellow amphibians. Excitedly moving towards the noise, Salim found the river he had been aiming for when he came down the plateau. It was deeper and faster than what he was used to, even spying some rapids further down the stream as slim rocks jutted out at odd angles.

The trees down in the valley hung off the side of the river, making access more difficult, as erosion slowly cut away at the banks. Setting up shop in a grove of rather large old looking oaks, Salim began to work, ripping out the smaller bushes and plants in his soon-to-be home. Clearing vines was difficult work, made worse by the fact that he didn’t have any tools, but after several hours he stood on a pile of torn vines, looking down at the clearing of soft dirt.

In contrast to his efforts at bush clearing, his new spell worked rather well, after gathering more moss and twigs, a stream of sparks was able to get a cracking fire going in a matter of minutes. Salim sat, marveling at the task which would have taken half an hour to accomplish, along with plenty of sweat and tears, reduced to a two-minute chore. Magic was still interesting and new to him, as he sat on the ground, watching the flames crackle while ideas danced through in his head.

As night fell, his stomach grumbled, complaining about the lack of food but was ignored as he was too exhausted to try fishing. Clearing the shelter to hide from Fallon seemed more important than a day of food to him, so he prioritized. Patting himself on the back, Salim laid close to the hot coals of the fire, warding off the crisp air that seemed to be slowly coming in as the days passed.

Winter hadn’t even been considered until one frosty morning, but its slowly creeping presence did raise a few interesting questions about Salim’s own existence. What decided when and where he came back? He had died four times, that much was fresh in his mind. Yet every single time he was placed into a semi-temperate, warm environment where the only element he had to worry about was the sun.

Was he being sent to the most optimal place for his survival? What conditions had to be met, or maybe it was somehow based around what he thought would be the best? These past few lives in forests had similar trees to what he knew on Earth…

His musing continued until he fell asleep, a hard day of work putting him to sleep like nothing else.

The next morning, he got ready to fish in the river with his spear— His spear! He left it up by the cave, god, how did he forget it?

I could try and go back and grab it.

He decided to write the spear off as a loss.

That's how he found himself grabbing another long but thin branch and began shaving away the tip once more, making a point with muscle memory. Slightly regretting not bringing any rocks down from the mountain with him, he was able to find smaller stones that he could use to slowly wear away at the wood. Getting into a groove, he was able to finish it ahead of his schedule and went to the river to hunt.

It only took a minute for him to conclude that the river was another beast compared to what he was used to, stretching several yards across and with unknown depth, Salim could only watch the large swaths of mana move underneath the surface. Still, he needed to eat, and could see smaller pools of mana swimming around, tempting him as they stuck to the sides of the river. That was perfectly fine with him, and eventually he was able to snag a somewhat pathetic fish with silver scales that had a texture like slime.

Still, for what could be considered a fresh start, even with the major advantages his stats offered, he was doing great. He still wanted to throw up the fish, but forced himself to keep it down as he tried to form a ball of sparks atop his palm. His current attempts had him shaping his hands like he was holding a ball, which in theory allowed for him to curve his sparks, although the attempt just ended with him spraying his other fingers with sparks, shaking his hands in discomfort from the sudden heat.

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Structures continued to stump him, so he worked to break everything down conceptually, going through the process of a dot, which was what he was able to do until he ended up with a circle. Going with that logic, his next attempt was emitting the sparks in a perfect circle from his palm. Feeling slightly confident, he was able to hook up a program to draw the pattern on his hand, although the math required to make shapes wasn’t something he had thought about in a while.

Preparing himself, he stood along the riverside with his hand facing the water, just in case. Pushing his mana into the spell, he felt the program spin up, shaping the mana through his program, in a much smoother way after his training with the push spell. However, right before the spell was about to “fire”, there was a hangup, as mana flowed out of his hand but didn’t fully ignite into fire.

Maybe it needs more mana because of the shape? Let’s see. He began to recast the spell, and once, then twice. Nothing seemed to happen, as mana poured out into the river. Not giving up, he prepared to cast the spell less as a stream, like what he was doing with his sparks, instead closer to how he cast the push spell, with a sudden burst of mana.

Right arm outstretched and palm open, he concentrated, mentally grabbing mana from his core and shoving it into the spell. Pressure built up as he clamped down on the mana, not letting it slip out and away from him, pulling it back while imagining a bow. Bracing his right hand with the left, Salim shifted slightly, trying to get rid of a cramp in his broken foot, before releasing the mana all at once.

It shot out like a cannon, a rush of energy heating up his skin as it passed through his arm, right into his palm.

Pain.

Searing pain was what he felt as he was blinded by a bright flash of light while the mana exited, searing flame pushed through his palm. Salim couldn’t help but let out a yell as he was momentarily stunned, before clutching his hand as it began to ache, deep and painful. Looking down at his palm, he could see bright red skin staring back at him, the shape being an almost impossibly perfect circle.

He had… succeeded, in a limited sense. Although the pain he was experiencing made him doubt if it was worth it, he knelt down and stuck his hand in the cold water. It made it hurt even more, but he knew that it might just get worse if he left it out in the open.

As he knelt, trying to ignore the pain in his hand and praying that a large fish wouldn’t come along and bite it off, Salim read the pop-ups he had gotten for the wayward attempt.

You have performed a feat of arcane ingenuity!

Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

He didn’t feel all too ingenious, with constant pangs of pain coming from his hand, he carefully navigated the menus with his left.

Guess I’m investing in [Resilience] again, I really need to stop shooting myself in the foot. He chuckled to himself as he braced for the inevitable sensation of his body turning stonelike.

Lvl. 17

Stats

Confirm

Might: 26 (30)

-/+

Finesse: 28 (33)

-/+

Resilience: 49 (50)

-/+

Acuity: 30

-/+

Resolve: 30

-/+

Depth: 28

-/+

On second thought, he wanted to try a theory he had. There was nothing that stated [Resilience] was what actually healed him after a level up, since both [Might] and [Finesse] causing different physical transformations to occur across his body. He was also just a little hesitant to keep leveling up [Resilience] every time he had an injury, his hands could only touch his thighs when he bent down nowadays.

The thought of lacking the ability to escape creatures like the spider made him shiver, before he confirmed his selection. He changes as his body began to limber up, muscles reinforcing in tandem as his body shifted. He watched the skin on his hand slowly molt, flaking off at a consistent rate with the cramps, dead skin pushed out as fresh pink skin emerged underneath.

It hurt, but it wasn’t the constant pain of raw burns. He was thankful, but witnessing the full process also just made him confused as to what the stat increases were doing to him. Where was the new skin coming from? How was it made?

Like a million other things, he was still confused and wasn’t going to receive any helpful information unless, maybe, he asked Fallon. Which he wasn’t entirely apposed to, but he wanted to…

Wanted something.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted at the moment, he just knew that he had wanted to get away from Fallon, they looked too similar to his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, he reminded himself. He knew that he had left without any real plan, his leg giving him another reason to get away.

Maybe I should have just let the spider eat me, then I wouldn’t have to deal with this. He stewed in his thoughts for a while, contemplating goals. After a few minutes of half-baked ideas, he had come up with something that resembled a ‘plan.’

While he still didn’t have anything long term for this life, or even longer term for his next one, he could at least establish short ones. After reaching level seventeen, he was only three away from what he assumed was the next class evolution. That meant he needed to keep experimenting with magic, and figure out a way not to burn his hand off anytime he wanted to cast something more intensive than sparks.

So as the moon rose once again, he continued to planned, plot, and eventually pass out to the croaks of the endlessly repeating frogs.