The days had been going smoothly so far, aside from the ever-present hunger, Ace had made respectable progress in his stats.
Level: Meridian Opening: Progress 2.34%
Sub-Level: Qi Gathering: Progress 0.14%
He planned to spend the next few days experimenting with his Qi in new ways. Something he hadn’t yet tried to do, as his efforts had been solely focused on opening new ones. On the other hand, not all of his improvements were directly related to magic, noticeable gains were also made in some of his mental areas.
(T1) Processing: 7 > 7.5
(T1) Perception: 8.5 > 9
Ace had a hunch that the increase in these stats was due to his advances in comprehension and access to magic. It was merely a guess for now, as he didn’t have solid evidence to pinpoint what the System defined those stats definition as. But, he did think that getting better at locating Qi points or motes on the periphery of his senses was why his Perception had leveled up. His theory concerning Processing’s increase revolved around the guess that his decipherment of Qi’s workings had helped it along.
Moving away from the changes in his Status, Ace’s arsenal of weapons expanded a good amount. The quality of Pointy could make even an experienced soldier grunt in appreciation, ignoring that it was a plain rock and not a steel tip. On top of that, Ace now had a few sharp sticks and a half-dozen rocks to serve in his endeavors.
Right now, Ace was doing the usual surveillance of the mountains. Similar to the days before, absolutely nothing had shown up so far.
That is until it came into his field of view. It appeared to be a mutated version of a shrew. First off, it was way too big, about the size of an overweight house cat. Not only that, it had snow-white fur, excessively wide and large paws, a ridiculously long nose, and some really fucking sharp and lengthy claws.
“The fuck is that thing,” He muttered.
The shrew seemed to glide over the snow, like a sled, it kind of just slid around. In Ace’s esteemed opinion, it was a stupidly unfair advantage that he didn’t have. It waddled closer and closer to his ledge every second. His stomach was itching to jump off and eat the damn thing, but he forced himself to wait. Ace quietly picked up Pointy and his sharpest stick on the off chance to stab the thing in the eye with it. His knuckles turned white from clenching his weapons and from the battering chill. In, and out, in, and out, he breathed.
Just a little closer…
He slowly got into a standing position, getting ready to get a drop on it and end the fight before it even began.
Ace leaned over the ledge.
3
2
1
GO!
He jumped off the ledge, stone scraping underneath his feet as he did so. He heard it and the prey did too. The shrew whirled to face where the noise came from. And, Ace could’ve sworn he saw its eyes go wide when it saw him. The animal backed up to avoid the descending calamity, but it was no use, Pointy crashed into the back of the beast, slamming it deep beneath the snow with a thud. Sadly, the shrew wasn’t the only one that fell deep beneath the layers of fluff.
Ace scrambled to extract himself, still caked in snow, the freezing temperature already starting to turn his skin numb. He was met with the sight of a pissed off shrew, and a whole lot of snow covered in crimson blood. He sluggishly raised his stick in case it decided to attack, and only the stick, as he had lost Pointy in the impact.
Ace cautiously shuffled toward the beast in a low crouch, not so subtly hinting that he would be lunging at it a moment later. Tragically for him, the shrew had plans other than being pummeled into the ground. Out of the blue, the food leaped at him with shocking speed, claws blurring in a flurry of slashes. Ace dodged to the right, but couldn’t entirely avoid the attack thanks to the snow holding him in place. Red flared in his Ace’s vision, the scent of iron assaulting his nose before it was carried away by the wind. There was also a new burning sensation from the top of his left shoulder down to his armpit, accompanied by blood pouring out from the wound.
And the thing didn’t let up after that either, continuously rushing towards him with a battle crazed frenzy, tiny pupils dilated to the max. Kicking backward, Ace put some distance between him and the foul beast. On the spot, he came up with a plan, optimistically wishing it would work. Against his instincts, Ace stood his ground as the mutant shrew cleared the distance between them. Once it reached him, it lifted off its back legs and shot at him, reminiscent of the first time it happened.
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Only, this time, he was ready. Prior to the swinging claws impacting him, he turned to the side, letting it fling past him. Once he realized it was missing him, he dived on top of its back and pinned it down. And, while Ace most definitely hadn’t been the strongest person back on Earth, he sure as hell was stronger than some oversized mouse.
He didn’t think twice, Ace took the stick and repeatedly stabbed the shrew in its beady eye until it no longer struggled.
At least, that had been the plan until the shrew pulled a fuck you card and thrashed with a level of power that he was damn sure was not meant to be possible for a big ass rat, shrugging him off as a result. A second later, Ace rolled away to avoid the claw that pierced half a foot into the snow, then jumped up and warily regarded the creature.
Shockingly, the shrew didn’t have the same contemplating behavior as him and charged at Ace once more. Similarly to last time, Ace shifted toward the side, letting the beast fly past him. He wasn’t able to replicate the effect he had the first time and pin down the thing. Which might not have been needed, as fortuitously for him, the shrew was continuing to lose blood from the first attack, with more gushing out with every second that went by.
As the fight drew on, the movements of the shrew started to falter, its legs began wobbling, and it no longer did any more reckless attacks. Ace decided to not even bother with trying to move in and finish the beast off, it would be far safer and easier to let it die from the blood loss. He wasn’t the only one that knew this though, and the shrew had finally concluded that he wasn’t winning this battle.
So, it turned and ran, which came out more like a desperate hobble to escape than anything resembling a run. Ace’s eyes narrowed predatorily, realizing that the resolution of the fight was here. He hurried to catch up to the animal, and with the wind pounding on his body, it certainly made it a difficult task. But, a dying shrew wasn’t a match for a capable human in a race, even in this terrain.
Halfway into the chase, the shrew stopped moving, likely already dead from its wounds. As soon as he reached within touching distance, Ace calculatingly poked it with his stick. There were zero signs of life, so Ace shrugged, grabbed it by its bobcat-like tail, and dragged it back to the fissure.
The fight hadn’t moved them that far from the fissure, so he arrived back relatively in good time. As soon as he got there, he lifted the beast over his head and flung it into the cave, quickly following after it. The shrew wasn’t that heavy, so it wasn’t that difficult, it just put some stress on his injured shoulder.
Speaking of which, Ace immediately put pressure on his wound once he sat on the wall of his warmer chamber. He had left the beast in the entryway, not worrying about it for now.
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A little while later, the bleeding had stopped, and he was back on his feet, relocating the shrew to the entrance of his chamber. Once that was done, he started to inspect just exactly what he had stumbled upon in the mountains.
First and foremost, Ace needed to eat, so with the sharpest stick and rock he had available, dubbed Pointy 2.0, he skinned the animal to the best of his ability. While the meat didn’t turn out nice and pretty, he had at the very least separated it from any organs and ultra fatty tissue. Also, he made sure to remove the furry, outer pelt of the shrew, before beginning work on a fire to cook the meat on.
Here, Ace managed to conjure a standard bonfire pit with the rocks scattered about the place and then put his Boy Scout skills to the test by rubbing a few dry sticks together to make a fire. Ace, wasn’t one to exaggerate much, but he would almost, just almost go to say that making the fire had been harder than killing the fucking murder shrew.
Nevertheless, Ace did get the fire stoked with his limited supplies.
Sadly, the only method Ace had to cook the meat was a flat rock, which he placed in the center of the fire with the meat lying on top. Not exactly the recommended method. Actually, this is probably going to be the shittiest piece of meat I’ve ever tasted, but also the best, what a strange world.
Surprisingly, the cooked big-ass shrew wasn’t too bad. Once mealtime was over, Ace washed up a little and did the same for the skinned animal, scraping off any leftover flesh, as well. He cut two holes he could slip his arms into on opposite sides of the length of the pelt. Regrettably, it looked like a long-sleeved shirt with just the sleeves instead of anything fashionable.
He enclosed the furry sleeves around each of his arms with a stick he broke into a few small pieces before binding both ends of the pelt together. Thankfully the pelt was loose and flexible enough to where normal movement wouldn’t pop out any of the bindings.
Ace decided to create a massive hat that dropped down to cover his entire head down to his upper back and chest. To preserve his vision, he carved out a sizable rectangular box from the bottom of his forehead to the edge of the pelt. And, bing bada-boom, new snowgear acquired.
For now, the pajama pants he had would have to suffice for his lower body. Since Ace still needed footwear, he did make some slippers that narrowly stayed intact when walking due to the longer sticks he pierced through each of them.
Practically all of the pelt had been put to use, so Ace moved all the remnants of the animal to the freezing regions of the tunnel to lengthen the expiration date on the meat.
“Alrighty then… magic time,” Ace said tiredly.
Tonight, Ace didn’t bother with new meridians, instead, he set his sights on drawing a different type of Qi into his already unlocked meridians.
Ace got into his proper meditation position and entered the spiritual world, this time was different from the others. He went further than he ever had before, beyond the scope of his senses and into the darkest corners of his already dim chamber. In those far reaches, there was always a faint sensation of a wider reality of Qi, slipping out of his grasp by the tiniest of margins. As soon as he grappled for the Qi, it squeezed out of his grip like smoke.
So, he waited, simply observing its nature. As he stood still he beckoned the Qi closer and a whirlwind of emotions erupted from the darkness, longing, gluttony, excitement, and cunning all assaulted his mind, filling it with unpleasant thoughts. He held on to his mind by the skin of his teeth. Suddenly, the thoughts ended. In the aftermath of unpleasantness, Ace held a spiritual fistful of Qi, a new kind of Qi, Darkness Qi.
He siphoned the Qi into one of his meridians, one he could now sense sat on the tip of his right pointer finger. With it came pain, not as bad as when he opened new meridians, but not too far off. He was decently sure it was due to the large quantity he had brought in. However, with great pain came great gain, and after the Qi passed through he could sense the meridian expanding and strengthening, not a ton mind you, but enough for him to notice.
Sub-Level: Qi Gathering: Progress 0.20%
It was a .06 percent increase, every mote of Qi brought him a 0.01% increase, so he must have gathered six Qi motes that session. New high score.
Achievement Unlocked: Strengthen Meridian(s)
+1 Toughness
(T1) Toughness: 2 > 3
Momentarily, Ace felt like he’d been hit by a hammer everywhere on his being until it disappeared just as fast as it had come.
Achievement Unlocked: Dual Core
+1 Spirit
Attribute cannot be applied. The Spirit attribute will be applied once/if the second threshold is reached
“Huh, what’s a Dual Core?” Ace pondered out loud.
A dual core contains two elemental affinities, generally dual cores are not feasible without great finesse as a vastly more attuned Qi type will usually devour a lesser attuned Qi type, causing a spiritual backlash to the cultivator.
Ace stared at the message in extreme shock, “Did my System upgrade or something,” He furrowed his brow, “Also, ‘spiritual backlash’ doesn’t sound very pleasant.”
System Interface: (T1)
Guess not then.