I woke with a start. I shot up out of bed and surveyed my surroundings. Wait, bed? The last thing I remembered was cutting the boar's leg off, how did I end up in my bed?
My armor was gone and all I was wearing were my underclothes that had seen better days. They were sweat-stained and dirty, with holes and tears all over them. I bought a second pair of clothes so I could alternate days while washing them but wear and tear had its way with these.
I didn't want to spend the points to get new ones and I would wait until these were falling off until I replaced them. The increased frequency of battles lately didn't help matters but oh well, it's worth it.
It took a few moments but I calmed down from waking up not where I remembered being and checked myself over for injuries. I took quite a few during the battle and if I left them be I would be in trouble.
Looking myself over I saw that everything was healed up nicely and only faint white scars were left. Abigail must have healed me. There was no way my body would have healed that fast. My increased vitality made healing much quicker but there was no way that it was that fast, the only way it could have healed naturally was if a few days had passed. I checked the timer until the end of the tutorial to check how much time had passed and was relieved to know it had only been a few hours.
My body was stiff and reluctant to move but I rolled out of bed regardless. My axe and shield were at the foot of the bed and I picked them up to inspect them. They were similar to my armor in that they needed some love and care. My axe was not as sharp after chopping all that wood and swinging it against hard-packed earth didn't help matters.
It had chips in burrs running the length of the edge and I didn't think it could cut through much of anything. There was nothing I could do about it though and I would have to work with what I had. Buying new gear was expensive and to replace my axe would be around 100 points which I didn't want to spend.
I was so close to getting a skill with the points I saved up and I wasn't going to blow them on a new axe just yet. So what if it was a little blunt, it would still get the job done.
The shield was in a similar state from all the attacks I had blocked with it. Before I was as good at deflecting attacks as I was now there were a few that it took head-on. Some of the wood was chipped and the metal embossment in the center was dented.
It would last longer than my axe would but not much longer after that. We needed a blacksmith or something to do some much-needed repairs on our gear. Plus it would make it last longer if it was regularly serviced.
Blacksmithing is something I could do. I wasn't inclined to sit over a cauldron for hours at a time brewing potions and I didn't want to be a carpenter, I'd leave that to the others. Enchanting was what I really wanted but Blacksmithing and Enchanting kind of went hand in hand. I wonder if I could do both.
There had to be a way to combine professions like there was a way to combine classes. Alchemist and Gardener had to have some overlap where you could do both, the same with Tailor and Leatherworker.
After looking over my gear my stomach made itself known and I realized that I hadn't eaten anything yet. The level 10 boar was the last thing we were going to fight before coming back and it had been a few hours since then, everyone was probably starting work right now and I was going to be late.
Before I left my tent to get some food I noticed that I had a notification pending, I must have leveled up from the fight. As I was opening it I expected the usual level-up spiel but was surprised that it wasn't a level that I got, it was a skill upgrade.
You have upgraded a skill:
Power Strike(Common) -> Heavy Blow(Uncommon)
I didn't even know you could do that. It must have been from pushing the skill past what it was meant to be able to do. I put everything into it making it the heaviest blow I had made thus far in the tutorial. The system must have agreed and named it heavy blow.
Heavy Blow(Uncommon) – Moderately enhances the next blow for an increase of strength.
The description was lackluster and I noticed that there were a few changes from Power Strike's description. It got rid of the mana part and just said enhances without saying what it enhanced it with, and there was the added modifier of moderately. It looked like a straight-up upgrade but I wouldn't know for sure until I tested it.
My stomach was really getting angry at me now so I closed the window and exited my tent. Everyone was already out working and there were only a few people left in camp to clean up after the meal.
Abigail noticed me immediately and came stomping over toward me. Ohh, shit. That did not look like a happy face and I could only think of how she felt looking at my unconscious body covered in blood. In my defense, most of it wasn't mine but I didn't think stating that would help.
I started to back away and increase the distance between us but that just made her walk faster. No, I wasn't running from my sister, I just knew what she was going to say and it wasn't going to be a fun conversation. I was just saving us both from the need to have it, no other reason.
"Christopher Taylor Zalenski, you better stay right there!" She half-yelled.
Oh, she full named me. This was worse than I thought. Abigail always had a habit of playing my second mother, it got worse after she had children of her own.
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I tried to disillusion her with that idea by telling her all the stupid things I had done to try and get her to stop but it never did. I didn't know why I thought that it would get her to stop, but I did. I even told her about that one time I drove backward all the way to high school because a friend of mine said I couldn't do it. I had a bad habit that once I heard the magic words, it was game on. 'I bet you can't' or any variation of that were my kryptonite.
Since she was hell-bent on giving me a piece of her mind I stopped and decided to take it like a man. Agreeing with everything she said to make her stop quicker.
"You have no idea how worried I was when I saw you, you... stupid... idiot... think before you act... make better choices... what would have happened if you lost... promise you won't do something so stupid again."
The rant was a lot longer than that but that was the gist of what she said. It might not have been in those exact words and if a nun was here she would have fainted, but the point was clear.
I spent the next ten minutes placating her and agreeing that it was a stupid decision and would think it through next time. Through all the word games and convolution that I took the conversation in, she didn't notice I never promised not to do it again.
I didn't know if it was a silly sense of pride or something else, but I always kept my promises and I would be lying if I said I wouldn't do it again. Ever since we were young my Dad always held us to our promises. Even if they were made in a joking manner, it didn't matter. He would say a person should be held to what they say and it had rubbed off on me over the years.
After she had said what she wanted to say she had calmed down and wasn't talking as loud.
"Oh, and I saved you some food for breakfast so you can eat it before going to help dig. You're all healed up and have no excuses not to, it's not like you want to tell everyone you're injured from fighting, right." Abigail smirked before walking off.
Oh, that devil. She knew I didn't want everyone to know about my morning activities and was using that fact to punish me. My body still hurt from the fight and the thought of spending all day digging made me want to crawl back in bed.
I brushed away that urge and resigned myself to my fate. If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough. Or so they say.
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It was hell. My body ached, my hands hurt, and I was pretty sure I couldn't lift my arms over my head, but I did it.
I took to digging with the same intensity as the previous days and worked my butt off trying to convince everyone I was fine. They were worried that I was sick or something from sleeping in and I kept telling them I was fine.
Austin thought it was the funniest thing in the world with me being constantly asked if I was ok and kept antagonizing me about it. He would say 'You're working slower than usual, are you sure you're fine?' Or 'You're sweating a lot. Maybe you have a fever.' I didn't say anything back, but he better be ready for payback when the shoe was on the other foot.
I fell asleep almost as soon as I laid down and was out like a light. Waking up so early was tough but I was getting used to it by now, the training notifications helped. Seeing visible progress has a way of motivating you. My strength continued its climb to thirty, with endurance and fortitude joining in on the fun. No magic increases this time but that was to be expected, I couldn't have the exhaustion from using mana AND be as tired as I was while working.
I had to limit my mana usage or I might have passed out again. It's good to push your body but if I did more than that it wouldn't have been training anymore, it would be a detriment. That just meant I had to focus on them today.
Austin met me at the usual spot and we made our way into the forest. After a minute of walking Austin broke the silence.
"I didn't think I would see you today, you looked half dead yesterday." He said.
"A little tiredness isn't going to stop me. Plus, I feel a level up today. After the boar, I feel like we're close to level 8." I said back.
"Me too, I don't know how but I feel like I'm close as well." He said back.
Knowing that we were both close to a level up, we picked up our pace a little and eagerly searched for prey. After the disaster of a fight yesterday I had finalized the new skill I was going to pick and wanted it as soon as possible. What I didn't say was after yesterday I had over 900 points and after the hunt today, I should have enough to buy a skill. I would get two in one day and I couldn't wait.
Also, I was itching to test my new skill out and fighting was the perfect way to see how much better it would be. I couldn't use it yesterday because I didn't know if there would be a visual change that would alert others. I would tell them eventually but after the amount of concern and probing questions yesterday I didn't want to add to the trouble. It increased in rarity and I was like a child before Christmas, I wanted to use it now.
It didn't take long to find our first victim and I finally got the chance to test out my new skill, I didn't want to mess up the test so had to make sure that the boar was as healthy as it could be.
"Let's not throw javelins at it this time, I want to test something. Let me get the first hit." I said to Austin.
He gave me a questioning look but nodded. It was a level 6 boar so it wasn't like we had to use our opening salvo.
I ran toward my target and started activating my skill, the boar noticed and charged at me as well. As we got closer and closer I started really pouring in the mana for the skill, it felt bottomless compared to Power Strike. I could tell that it was taking something else too besides the mana.
I couldn't tell what it was, but it was taking mana in addition to something else. Both the energies added together and the glowing of my axe intensified. It kind of looked like a weak lightsaber by this point.
Eventually, it stopped taking mana at about five times as much as the previous skill and that said nothing of the other energy mixed into the skill. Since the boar was so kind enough to charge me head first, I thought it nice to give it a little present for being so nice.
Instead of using my shield to stop its charge, I brought my axe down right onto the top of its head. What followed was unexpected and caused me to stumble after my swing.
As soon as the axe made contact, all of the energy in the axe transferred into the boar... explosively. Its head exploded in a spray of gore that covered me head to toe and its headless body embedded itself into the dirt coming to a dead stop. Heh, dead stop.
I just stood there incredulously staring at my axe like it was a mighty artifact.
"Hot DAMN, what was that?" Austin shouted behind me.
"You know how yesterday when I took the boar's leg off, my swing was a lot more powerful than it should have been," I said still staring at my axe.
"Yeah I saw, you did something that I didn't think was possible, it was kind of hard to miss." He said back.
"Well it caused my skill to upgrade and that was me testing it," I said back, finally turning to see his face. He looked at me like I was crazy, opening and closing his mouth before he finally said.
"That was only one skill? I thought you managed to buy another one and combined them or something." He didn't know whether to cry or celebrate.
He then launched into an investigation of how exactly I did what I did so that he could replicate it. I didn't hold anything back and told him everything about how I did it. He was my friend and I wanted to see him succeed as well.
As we made our way toward more boars all I could hear was him muttering obscenities mixed with calling me a lucky son of a bitch.
You win some and you lose some. He'll get over it.