With a muffled thud he dropped back into his home realm. Sprawled out on the thick grass below. His jaw was slack and his eyes rolled back into his head.
He’d received a tremendous shock to his mind, body, and soul. Such that he was effectively paralyzed.
Coming into contact with a being of might so incomprehensibly above his own, left his mind reeling. He was completely and utterly shocked out of his mind.
Unbeknownst to him as he lay there, the world he’d just departed from was now experiencing the baptismal fire and fury of an angry Titan who’d not roused for an age.
After what felt like hours he listlessly crawled towards the tree and began chewing on some sticks with his head resting against the base of the tree.
His lifeless eyes bore into the surrounding fog, unmoving as he was still processing what had just happened.
A small chuckle escaped from his dry throat as he thought about how he’d been worried about the portal home, without thought of what heaven or hell he might teleport to.
Well, at least he now knew that death in another world was only in name. He did not think the same would be true if it were here though. Still, he never wanted to experience anything like that again.
Just the memory of the heat alone made his throat feel itchy. He grimaced while trudging over to the tiny stream.
Still scowling he bent down and laid his head in the middle of the stream, the water tasted crisp and clear as if purified a hundred times over. He momentarily forgot himself as he lay there greedily guzzling his newest chilled beverage like a man who’d been lost in the desert for far too long.
His face held a smile as he rolled on to his back with eyes closed, just feeling the cool flow of water wash beneath his head.
And just like that…
The moment of respite was over and his face drew back to an ugly scowl. It couldn’t be helped, to date, that was literally the sum of his life experience and it wasn’t something anyone should endure.
He paced around the edge of the clearing gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists. Finally after a full thirty circles did he stomp back to his tree and begin gnawing on a branch.
With a huff of hot air expelled from his nostrils, he closed his eyes and focused on the other view available to him.
Unlike before it seemed like there were several notifications that had popped up, he was simply far too distracted to notice them earlier.
[Achievement: First Death!]
-Description: First taste of death’s cold embrace.
-Reward: 15 SP + 100 Experience
[Level up!]
[Achievement: Titan Showdown]
-Description: Faced off against a super powerful being high above the masses, regardless of the outcome.
-Reward: Random intelligent race made available, equivalent to the user’s own level.
He could not help but smack his lips after reading the first two pages, it was nice to be rewarded but these achievements were just too…
Ding!
[Congratulations!]
-You’ve been granted the option to summon the race (Panuki)!
A complete 180 occurred as his face lit up, he’d no idea what the hell a Panuki was, but the thought of building an army of his summons stroked the evil laughter rising within his heart.
[Menu]
-Status
-Portal
-Realm(New!)
-Shop(New!)
With a giant grin plastered on his face, he selected Realm while laughing out loud in triumph.
[Realm]
-Summon lesser species (Panuki)
-Description: Panuki are a race of sentient beasts, highly intelligent, very social, and curious. Originally from a peaceful planet, the Panuki are great in carrying out non-combative tasks. Physical capabilities are very low.
-Price: 25 SP
He read through the description with great skepticism, if he didn’t know better it looked like he’d just been rewarded with a terrible race…
Regardless he grit his teeth upon seeing his total SP at the bottom.
Counting the 15 he just got from the achievement…
He now had 15 SP.
Just above his total SP however, was a new line;
-SP: 1 Per Hour
His head almost exploded, “Fuck, how could this system be so stingy!?” He thought.
The only plausible explanation he could think of was that he lost all his points when he died. Something to confirm in the future, though he’d rather not die again.
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Depression looming, he looked next, to the shop with a glimmer of hope shining through the dark clouds around his head.
[Shop]
Acorn:
Price: 5 SP
Desc: A single acorn of unknown origin.
Obsidian:
Price: 10 SP
Desc: A half cubic meter of obsidian.
“Well, it’s better than nothing.” He thought trying to hold back the tides of depression.
He hesitated for a moment before letting out a long sigh. His optimism was at an all-time low, before going anywhere again he was going to assume there was a good chance of him dying again.
With that in mind, he steeled his resolve and purchased an acorn and obsidian block in subsequent order.
Just like that, with nothing but a thought, the two materials appeared just above the ground in front of him. They lightly fell to the surface and the acorn rolled away slightly.
He picked up the acorn first to examine it, yet there was no display to show him what tree it would grow into. He pouted, from his own inspection there didn’t seem to be anything special about it.
He walked towards the middle of his realm and planted his new acorn in the soil before covering it lightly with the surrounding soil.
He smiled at having accomplished even this much for now. Looking back at the big black cube he felt a growing headache. Rather than figure out what to do with that, he decided to go review his own status.
What he found was that there was a tab within [Status] that he’d missed before.
[Abilities]
[Nurture]:
-Active / Passive
-Description: Spriggan’s are innately able to stimulate the life-force of all plants, their presence alone nourishes the surrounding vegetation.
And yet another skill
[Nature Affinity]
-Racial Passive
-Within regions full of nature energy the users recovers mana and stamina at an increased rate dependent on the surroundings and the users level.
-Description: Spriggan’s are beings of nature and as such are stimulated by their surroundings.
“Hmmm, it makes sense.” He thought. Whenever he was laying on the grass or near the tree he felt strangely comfortable although the feeling was very minute.
“Well then…” He mused as he reached out his hand to the freshly disturbed soil.
With just a thought he felt peaceful warm energy radiating through his body and out from his extended palm. A faint green glow emanated out drifting into the soil.
He immediately felt a tug in his heart and mind, like his power was draining out of him. Mana as it was known, was being used up in a swift fashion until he ran completely dry unable to eke out a single bit more.
It was a similar feeling to when one loses too much blood, his head began to pound and he felt woozy.
“Only that much?” he cried out inside his heart. He’d barely maintained the ability for 5 seconds before he’d been completely drained of mana. Yet his labor bore fruit, at least to an extent.
A tiny little sapling had sprouted out of the soil reaching a few centimeters in height while boasting a whole of two small leaves.
Despite his dizziness, he smiled at his little sapling, he could not help but marvel at his ability and shake his head at the thought of his capabilities. He was well and truly rather weak.
Still, the little sapling brought a smile to his face, he’d given life to this little tree.
Well then, this brought him back to square one. He could sit, wait to recover his mana, nurture the tree and repeat the cycle all over but…
Then What?
All he’d of accomplished is making another oak tree, and he’d be right back to his current predicament.
No, he’d have to face the world once more, it was the only way. Yet the question remained, which world exactly would he be facing?
He sighed out in distress, nervously munching on more twigs to calm himself.
For a long while, he stared at the tree in contemplation before an idea popped into his mind.
He needed a weapon!
With renewed gusto, he climbed up the tree eyes snapping left and right till he found what he believed to be the perfect branch!
The branch was not too thick to be unusable but just enough to make it feel sturdy and reliable. He stepped out onto the tree limbs and snapped the branch off at the base.
Once he returned to the ground he broke off the front till it was just over a meter in size.
Now at least he felt safety in not being completely defenseless.
He laid back down against the tree and closed his eyes, he didn’t want to jump back into another world before regaining some energy.
After a quick nap, he felt refreshed and full of vigor, “This is it!” He thought to himself as he tried to boost his spirit.
Looking at the option to teleport he gulped down his saliva, grit his teeth, and grasped his branch tightly.
With just a thought the whole world vanished once more.
In a blink, he went from looking at his tree to staring at a completely new foreign landscape surrounding him.
His body cowered low raising the branch out in front of him to ward off any would be enemies.
His heart raced like crazy, as he spun in a circle looking desperately to find any threats around him.
Soon the spinning slowed and his branch relaxed ever so slowly.
What he saw around him was an arid landscape dotted with shrubs, tenacious trees, and towering cacti. The land was rough full of pale tan and reddish hued surroundings that raised up into mountains.
The air was hot, dry and when he looked up he saw a bright red ball in the sky cascading rays of sunshine down onto the planet’s surface.
On top of that, he could count five large circular objects in the sky beholding their daunting presence for all to behold. From his current view alone he saw five of the planets moons. One even boasted colors of green and blue a telltale sign of biological life.
It was all stunning in its own right. His life was void of experience, with each new location he encountered his mind was swept away with awe and endless questions inside his heart.
He even felt the volcano was extremely majestic, that is, before the encounter.
Having come fresh off his last death his nerves were not so easily calmed and so as he began to explore this foreign landscape he kept extremely vigilant.
Habitually some of the local sticks, twigs, and vegetation he found ended up inside his mouth as he pressed forward.
The sound of a creature’s soft coo’s echoed softly into his ears, he froze, knuckles turning white from his desperate grip.
As he listened further he began to make out the direction it was coming from and decided to stalk closer.
With all the stealth his small frame could muster he kept forward and the sound became clearer.
Rounding a bush, he’d come face to face with a small species of bird walking on two legs and continually cooing to nothing in particular.
He observed the bird for a while until it noticed his own presence. They stared at each other tilting their heads to the side at one another out of curiosity.
The bird felt no ill will or rejection to the spriggan’s presence and so it edged closer.
Step after step it approached, just as its left foot fell down again, a burst of rock and sand sprayed out. It was all too quick and the spriggan jolted back in fear.
The debris cleared and what he saw was a giant wormlike creature, its body wider than both his fists put together and its length unknown. Only that there was already a meter of its body sticking out.
The creature's face was like a rocky spearhead, with a mouth lined with sharp rows of teeth going a full circle in the creature’s mouth, inside of which was the once lively bird currently being eviscerated.
[Rock Worm lvl 12]
“Fuck” he gritted his teeth, frozen from indecision.
He took a step back and the creature’s head snapped towards his direction.
The bird was all but ground into shreds by now.
He stumbled to the side without even thinking as the worm flew through the air past where he’d just been standing.
Its body instantly burrowing into the ground at a frightening speed. He managed to react fast enough, jamming his stick into its wriggling body before it could slide into the underground.
It was enough to stop the worm in its tracks but only for a moment as its end flailed wildly, dislodging the spriggan from it.
He was horrified, his stick had only barely been able to puncture its skin, hardly leaving any damage. It made sense, after all this creature tunneled through hard rock at frightening speeds, it’s no wonder its skin would be so thick.
The spriggan ran aimlessly away in horror, each footstep like a beacon in the dark to the rock worm, sending vibrations down into the earth.
He heard the rumble of the earth below being torn asunder, just moments before the worm exploded up again, sending rock and debris flying through the air.
He was forced to not only dodge the earth breaking appearance but also the subsequent dive. If either of these opportunities were capitalized on this gruesome worm would make short work of his frail body.
The spriggan ran for his life dodging, ducking, and rolling as the terrifying worm hunted him with fervor.
After stabbing its receding form a few times his gave up on the idea as it was incredibly ineffective. The only thing he gained was a longer period before it surfaced again.
He racked his brain for anything as he fought for his life.
Eventually, he reached the base of a wall of towering cliffs, in the middle was a small mountain pass no wider than a meter.
His heart raced at the sight, his body bruised and bleeding from being thrown all over.
As he barreled into the pass the worm shot out once again, missing him barely, yet this time it barreled into the surrounding wall instead of the ground.
A glint of light could be seen flashing in the spriggan’s eyes, this is what he’d been hoping for. That said, he was smashed to the side, his shoulder on fire, the worm had returned far faster than ever before.
It simultaneously emerged and burrowed in a split second again and again as the spriggan threw his body around in desperation.
Multiple lines of the worm now intersected the pass. The spriggan dove between two such lines with tyrannical worm following suit a second later.
He fell rolling to the side until he was sprawled on his back gasping for air with burning lungs. The creature opened its mouth wide in anticipation before coming to a jarring stop, less than a meter from its pray.
It struggled forward with all its might, slowly gaining distance, until it could push no farther. Finally, a new emotion was displayed from the rock worm, confusion. It writhed around trying to make sense of what was going on.
The spriggan still sprawled on his backside laughed maniacally between desperate gasps of air. He’d done it!
The Rock Worm had successfully tied itself into a knot while still lodged into the adjacent rock faces after its last attack where it’d dove between two of its own sections.
Vengeance burning in his eyes, the spriggan retrieved his sturdy stick and mounted the base of the rock worm’s head, clamping his legs hard as it attempted to flail in desperation.
With no sympathy at all, he stabbed down as hard as he could repeatedly on the slight bulging area beneath the head.
It was hard work as the creature’s skin was tough. Stab after stab with all his might brought splashes of thick viscous green blood spilling out.
Still, the creature lived and so he pushed harder, taking out all his pent up anger on the creature’s vital organs. It wasn’t till all 6 of its hearts had been stabbed through that it finally fell into deaths cold embrace.
He didn’t stop till the notifications registered in his mind.
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
The spriggan collapsed to the side, utterly exhausted both physically and mentally. Yet there was still a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Much better than the first time.” He laughed inside while thinking back to the fiery volcano titan of death.