With a full team now with him in Gronwood, Nate found the first week after distributing the stones to be quite enjoyable. Fuzzball walked through the forest using his new healing abilities to restore the Dead Wood and worked on filling out the field where they encountered the manifestation portal. Ellisandra and Krypdyr helped Nate with repairing the rest of the town, and Captain Luma and the rest of her crew arrived after they had enough places for them to stay. With all of them in Gronwood nearly every house was occupied. They worked together to get the town in full working order.
“There’s another manifestation portal spawning in creatures north of here,” Nate said as he and Krypdyr pushed a wall into place. He’d retracted the Terry claws and looked to just be wearing dark purple leathers.
The leather rippled as Terry’s head pushed out from his chest, but Nate gently laid a hand on top and pushed him back. “I know you’re hungry, buddy, but we need those portals to finish what they spawned in to do. More will come for you to eat, I’m sure.” His stomach growled loudly. “Terry’s strength is great, but his hunger is relentless.”
“As you progress, your need for food and water will wane,” Krypdyr said. “Usually.”
“I've been hungrier since the fusion. Do you think this is going to be a problem as we progress?”
“I can’t say I’ve heard of anyone who ever had an Astral Maw as a familiar. This, like luckomancy in general, is mostly unexplored territory.”
Nate patted the dust from his hands, “Glad we have plenty of food around for now. Cross that bridge when we come to it.”
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Some time later, Terry led several of the crew members around the forest, finding regular hunting now that the forest was repopulated. Captain Luma and Ellisandra staged an area in the market square, and Nate moved from monster to monster, looting the usable bits, then placing on an adjacent table the looted bones, feathers, teeth, and so on for distribution to those best able to craft weapons, armor, and other objects from said materials.
Several of the steelbeaks in the pile were strangely covered in vines.
“Where did these come from?” Nate asked as he looted them.
Nicholas, who was tying together bundles of ratmole furs, pointed north. “Up near Saltwatch. We’ve always avoided the area because of the corpse-vine.”
Nate called up the bestiary entry for corpse-vine.
Corpse-vine. Colossal Plant Monster. Rank increases based on size, beginning at Apprentice rank. Common in battlefields or places where death occurs on a grand scale, corpse-vines grow into and take control of the nearby dead. Their seeds are sown into living beings via piercing the skin. Corpse-vines are weak to cold damage, healed by fire damage, and immune to most other elemental damage types. Once large enough, a corpse-vine can create combat forms of differing types as a defense mechanism. Find its core to destroy it.
“So, plant zombies?”
“Yeah, sort of,” Galad said as he picked up a basket full of steelbeak claws.
“Terrifying. We should probably deal with that soon. There’s no one that way named Abby, is there?”
“Abby?”
“Yes. We hate Abby! Alas my friend, if only the game didn’t take away our ability to choose to take her out.”
“Which video game is this one?” Zeff asked.
“Last of Us 2. Worst 50 hours spent since Two-Worlds.”
“How did you have that amount of free time?” Zeff said as he dismantled his slate on one of the tables.
“Well, unlike here, the only monsters we really had to deal with were other humans, and we were mostly left to our own devices. In many cases, like mine, literally. I played games in which I had control, the power to choose my character’s lot in life, because there wasn’t much control in reality.”
“Why didn’t you take control?” Krypdyr asked.
Nate frowned thoughtfully as Terry danced around as the monster bodies became motes of light, excitedly devouring the little orbs of dissipating magic.
“You know, if it weren't for his huge mouth filled with terrifying teeth, Terry would be adorable,” Luma said. Terry gave her a disapproving and hungry look.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Terry is adorable! And a good boy!” Nate said, pointedly not answering Krypdyr, mentally commanding Terry forward. He stepped into Nate, and a long tooth wrapped at the base in purple leather extended as a sword from Nate's right hand. “Time for training.”
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“You're very bad at this,” Ellisandra said as she knocked Nate to the ground again. She'd shaped a dull steel sword for them to practice, and Nate had been surprised at how light his new tooth blade felt in his hand. He intentionally pulled his luck power back so he could focus on his weapons training.
“I didn't exactly grow up in a place that needed these particular skills,” Nate groaned as he stood, pointing the sword in her direction.
It had taken several hours of their first time training for Nate to learn the proper way to hold a sword. He'd finally managed to get that right, and now was discovering just how good of a swordswoman Ellisandra was.
“That's no excuse,” Ellisandra said. “Again!”
Steel struck tooth, then Nate reeled back, blood spurting from his nose as she pivoted her blade around his, her pommel smashing into his face. Nate saw white for a second, then healed his nose with a touch. The blood that flowed down onto his purple leathers absorbed into it, consumed by Terry.
“Sometimes,” Nate muttered, “training sucks.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
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Early in their training, Krypdyr suggested that Nate set aside time to focus on learning as much as he can about the new realm he found himself in. Thus, Nate spent his time before bed reading through the numerous entries he now had since his Interface had absorbed and updated its databases. One of the more interesting entries for him was the one concerning auras, and the practices to improve them and the general etiquette surrounding their use in public spaces.
After reading about the methods of controlling one’s aura, he tried to apply the practices. He sat cross legged on the bed and turned his mind inward, focusing on his aura. He felt the bounds of the aura, encompassing much of the Gronwood Cantina. He felt the presence of his friends who were still having a good time down in the tavern. Instinctually, he tried to reduce the range of the aura.
It took several tries, but eventually he was able to pull the aura back a foot. The attempt left him feeling a bit strained, and he felt it a good enough try for that night. As days became weeks, his control over his aura improved. After the end of the month, he could retract his aura fully into himself. He excitedly showed the others with auras, and they wanted in on the aura training. So they set aside a time near nightfall for them all to practice.
“In cities full of people with and without auras,” Nate read aloud one night before they started the practical side of the training, “it is frowned upon, and sometimes illegal, to keep your aura extended. Though most auras tend to be beneficial, the mixing of so many auras can create areas of disorienting magic fluctuations. Though not directly harmful, there have been numerous instances of accidents taking place in such areas.” He closed and tossed his illusory journal behind him, where it dissolved with a flash of light.
“Enough of that,” Nate said as he sat cross legged on the ground with the others, “let’s continue.”
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Melee combat training was the worst of the regiments Nate implemented for himself. Light Melee weapons with Ellisandra. Heavy Melee with Krypdyr and Unarmed with Fuzzball. He alternated those days. Archery he practiced every evening.
Terry was essential for Nate's armor training, being able to quickly switch between light and heavy armor types. This training ran in tandem with his weapons training, as he was struck more than he did the striking.
He found he had the most fun with his Stealth and Sleight of Hand training. He'd sneak around at night, placing small items like rat mole teeth into the pockets of anyone he could get to. He started with those who slept in the various houses, picking locks that were soon engaged after the first several days, further training his Lockpicking skill.
Though less concerned with them, the crafting skills were some of the easier to train. He practiced his cooking daily, preparing meals for the whole of Captain Luma's crew. Fuzzball received seeds from several crew members, pilfered from various merchants, and had a much wider selection that Nate could choose from.
Using his Interface Podium, Nate practiced his other crafts. He dug into the expansive crafting recipes list he'd gotten from the slate download, looking for items that would train multiple crafting skills with his active list of ingredients. He crafted leather padded chairs that used the Carpentry, Smithing, Leatherworking, and Clothier skills.
His Carpentry and Smithing also went into constructing a large scaffolding parkour setup on the outskirts of Gronwood. They worked together, building the series of platforms that rose above even the peak of the temple's highest point. They then added steel plates on the ground around the obstacle course that Nate painted targets on. When asked what they were for, Nate parkoured his way up to the top and leapt off the side, superhero landing on one of the plates. With a groan he stood and healed himself, shaking the remnant pain from his fist.
To his amusement, he found that creating sauces using the podium improved his Cooking and Alchemy skills. By the end of the third month, he'd tried numerous combinations from the garden and had a large collection of sauces he kept and a great many more that didn't make the cut. Some of his sauces were even magical, with healing properties granting brief levitation, or other magic effects. He’d even discovered a hot sauce recipe that gave him resistance to heat.
His racial abilities were a bit more difficult to train. His Adaptive Learning skill seemed to randomly trigger during his other training. During one of his Acrobatics training sessions, Nate landed on a target plate in a perfect handstand, feeling none of the typical pain of landing. Several times, he even nearly landed a blow on Ellisandra. Nearly.
With a captured rat-mole, Nate activated Indomitable Spirit and felt the bites repeatedly, watching the notifications appear over and over. He trained his Tenacity skill during his training with Fuzzball, who could use his Frost Touch to form ice over his fists. His Resourceful skill saw regular use as he built the parkour scaffolding, adding some weaker constructions in strategic locations to make the course more difficult.
By the end of the third month of relentless training, Nate reached level 26 and began to gain the first perks in quite a few of his Novice skills.