Today started great, after trying to follow his routine and failing. He tried to use his recently acquired mana vision but he still couldn’t see.
Throwing more blood spears around and detonating them helped pass the time. Although after a while that got boring so in his need to sate his boredom he tried to lure a monster closer to his dome. He threw out a piece of meat with some blood string wrapped around it and covered in barbs.
He had no clue how to get one over but he thought some bait might be enough. A couple of minutes later he had a fresh screaming monster to play with. Toby had no idea what to do, so he just kinda stared at it. It had bulbous eyes, was covered in mucus, and had scales and webbed feet. It looked kinda like a frog crossed with a walrus.
He eventually decided on experimenting with mana, wrapping it with a string like a cocoon. He slowly started squeezing and stopped when it stopped moving, he checked its life signs with [Intent understanding] and it was alive.
Toby tried to rip the mana out of it, moving on to the next phase. The results were messy… to say the least, it started just trying to properly grab them in his mind. Then he started pulling, after a few seconds it didn’t move so he slowly increased the pull. The monster woke up and started gurgling, so he flooded its vocal cords with [Blood crystal] and continued. After he reached a certain point, they came out with a crunchy-like sound.
Looking at them they were kinda translucent and covered with slime, surprisingly the elemental in his body wanted to eat them.
So he did and they tasted horrible, like raw meat. His body started heating up and his mana capacity increased by [400]. After trying to hurl up his nonexistent stomach the taste eventually went away, he didn’t even know how he could taste this. Toby didn’t have taste buds, not even a tongue. He felt wrong, like glass shattering and rotten corpses, sure he eventually just ignored it but he didn’t know when the feeling would stop.
It increased his mana so he ignored it, if it started to hurt he would stop. He harvested the corpse for bone and threw the meat in body storage. Later he would work on putting the rest of his food storage in it too but first, he needed to grab some more monsters. He threw out another line and waited and he felt a strong tug and dug his heels in.
“ SQUEAL” as he slowly pulled it in it he saw it was a massive pig.
He did the same thing with it and after the taste faded he harvested it for bone. Toby’s mana increased again by [50] it was slowly becoming clear this had diminishing returns.
The mist slowly started dissipating but stopped when it was just barely visible, realizing he could explore again he rejoiced. Running to harvest his traps he harvested corpses for bone along the way, his body was slowly becoming heavier. His movement wasn’t affected yet, but he had to take note of this. In the jungle the slowest dies, it's like an unspoken rule have you ever seen something willingly mess with a poisonous snake other than a badger.
He came across this weird centipede eating another centipede, it was too disgusting he didn’t want to think about it again. After throwing 20 exploding spears at it he left the area to go wash, reaching the lake area he noticed the abundance of animals.
Deer, antelope, monkeys, bovine, and some other things all sitting quietly and watching the surrounding area. They all turned their heads towards him, he stopped, and then they looked away and ignored him. There wasn’t any mist here it was somehow absorbed by the water. Creatin a couple of durable vine sacks that he filled with water, after checking the water with [Intent understanding] this skill was surprisingly useful he deemed it safe to drink.
He walked back to camp Helio, this week was interesting, or two weeks depending on your planet zone.
He started harvesting his puppet tree for plant matter, and he figured out by saturating a tree with his mana it would slowly become harder and looked cool. The look cool was important as if he was going down it had to be in style.
He made another puppet tree and decided to have another Q&A session with the system and chat to you know.
“ Hey system can you tell me a story of any kind before I nod off after asking you some questions” Toby stated
[Sure]
“ Can you tell me how different mana interacts with each other”
[Fire mana generates heat, and Water mana water particles so when they meet they create steam]
[Dark and Light mana or holy and unholy are almost opposites, Dark mana is unstable and light is stable. When they meet they tear each other apart and whoever wins depends on power and stability, causing an explosion of neutral energy]
[Air and fire, and when Air is used to enhance Fire creates lightning and loses its positive charge this can be taken with a grain of salt as mana screws up your universe's normal physics]
[But mana does have a certain set of rules, number one is that it can’t change forms or types of energy without losing some energy, number two is that mana cannot under any circumstances create more mana at zero cost]
[Earth mana and water mana have the same type of relationship as dark and light, just without the explosion as Earth mana is one of the most stable types. While water is fluid and seeks to change the things around it, Air mana changes things around it more. Water does tend to make other mana around it unstable]
“ Thanks, now can you tell me a story or a joke now”
[Once there was a Hero, who rescued princesses and fought dragons after many years. Stopped to ask why he was doing that, and asked the dragon why he was doing it, the dragon spoke and said to protect his gold for if a hero saves a princess he leaves the gold. For what is a dragon without his gold, it can be used to buy pretty gems or to impress others with its sheer size.]
[For if I had no gold I would have nothing, I worked protecting kingdoms for years from other kingdoms so that they feel safe. And after losing my gold to an upstart hero I had to do it for many more years to get back what was lost, one day I kidnapped a princess someone stuck up and no one liked. The hero took the princess but not my gold, so every time after I worked I would take a princess with me. Keeping my gold and my life, as heroes never check to see if a dragon is truly dead when a princess is thanking them]
[I told all the other dragons some listened and some didn’t the ones who died were mourned, and the ones who lived celebrated, The Hero went back home and went to bed the next day he retired and worked as a farmer for the rest of his life]
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[Goodnight]
Pov shift :)
Karl checked the monster’s corpse for valuables and weapons to be used for trading.
Earlier he would have balked at the idea of dissecting and rummaging through the corpse, but after reaching level five and realizing he needed better and better equipment he changed his mind. Currently, he was at level 11, he was doing pretty well he didn’t have a class yet as you gained one at level 15.
Strength:20
Dexterity:20
Constitution:19
Endurance:18
Vitality:21
Intelligence:10
Willpower:16
Wisdom:10
Charisma:10
Perception:19
Before level 15 he would gain twenty more stat points to distribute, he didn’t want to be too tanky or too slow, or weak. He used fifty-five stat points so far, and he was trying to run a solo build and currently, he was trying to go title hunting. Titles boosted your stats by a set amount permanently, and he didn’t have one besides survivor which made the constitution boost his health at a rate of fifteen to one instead of ten to one
[285/285]
Running across the ruined skyline and hunting for goblin camps was exhausting but it helped level. When mana started coming in so did monsters trying to follow it, kobold and goblin warbands ravaged the populace. Orcs, trolls, and other things you would expect in a D&d campaign ran around randomly attacking people or monsters. The smaller humanoid monsters set up traps around the area where they lived, they were easy to spot and helped identify which type of monster made up the camp.
Kobolds used pitfall traps and rope traps, trying to capture things alive. Goblins actively tried to kill things with traps, so there were two trap types.
Listening for a little bit Karl heard the telltale screech of a goblin fighting, sneaking along the top of the broken building he managed to spot it. It was between two trees in some shrubbery, pulling out his sling he waited until it either died or came out.
The goblin ran out screeching being chased by a grey wolf, taking aim and letting go he conked it in the head. The goblin fell dazed and the wolf started disemboweling it, it screamed and howled as the wolf's claw ripped apart its stomach lining. The wolf didn’t even wait for it to die to start eating, the wolf peered in his direction but he was already gone. When killing a goblin you didn’t want to leave evidence as they held grudges, so letting the wolf look like they killed it would throw them off.
[Level up!]
Strength:20+2
Dexterity:20+2
Constitution:19
Endurance:18+1
Vitality:21
Intelligence:10
Willpower:16
Wisdom:10
Charisma:10
Perception:19
He divided up his 5 stat points and let the sensation wash over him, walking back to the refuge he snagged a few apples to eat.
“ Hey Karl I see you went scouting again” spoke the tavern owner Derrick
“ I saw a goblin, I dazed it and let the wolf finish it” he responded
“ Let the guards know goblins are nearby, wouldn’t want them caught off guard” Derrick stated
He headed off towards the town wall and spoke to the guard captain.
“ Let Derrick know I’m paying for ya food tonight,” he told him after he told him about the goblin.
Heading back toward the tavern and getting in his room, and grabbing his radio he listened for a few hours before turning in. The radio chittered and garbled all night only managing to snag a few words that came from nearby guards talking over radio.
The next morning he went to the food market and bought a loaf of bread and some butter and apple slices. One perk of mana is everything grew faster and lasted longer, allowing grain to reach maturity in 5 days. Keeping the alcohol industry affloat and keeping bread on tables, the north was an absolute mess. Filled with undead and icy monster variants it was a wasteland, the south was the exact opposite filled wiith living poisonous creatures and fire elementals.
We were in the middle, sometimes during the monster surge we would encounter all sorts of monsters. Some monster surges are filled with predominantly one type of monsters, like lizard or aquatic ones.
Anyway after grabbing his scout pack and sling he headed out again, he followed the same path and checked on the dead goblin. There was more tracks around it from a bunch of wolves, he set up a simple pitfall for when goblins came to investigate and loot.
He went farther into monster territory and set up a couple more traps, and shot a wolf with horns with his sling. It went down after a couple stones to the head, and he grabbed the corpse and started heading back.
But then he noticed the goblins, he quickly hid behind something before they spotted him they were inspecting the corpse and one walked a little too close triggering his trap. It fell into a hole and wasn’t seen again, the goblins looked around screeched and headed back to their main group.
After they left he continued homeward, and went to sell his carcass.
He managed to sell it for around 50 valif earning a 20 percent profit, he used that to pay for his room and some food.
The government or what was left of it was busy trying to combat the rising need to keep viruses in check, mana mutated everything good or bad. Cancer is still lethal by pre system standards, but with the ability to increase your bodies ability to combat diseases with a press of a button its not a major concern. The real concern are the parasites they are the worst thing in the world, they are learning.
A couple weeks ago a parasite got a guard and we didn’t notice until he tried to open the gate to let in monsters during a surge. The only people Karl know aren’t parasites are himself, Derrick, and the guard captain as he has known them for a long time.
Derrick used to be the high school bully but when he lost his friends he decided to put his brawn and people skills to use as a tavern keeper. The guard captain is Billy he used to be a senior studying architecture and helped design the wall.
He told Toby’s parents that he might be dead, as nobody had seen him but they still hold out hope.
Brian was his informant in the north on the situation on the monsters, allowing him to know what type of monsters he would face in coming monster surges.
Checking with him, Brian informed him that the monsters were being passive and that the surge would most likely come from the south. He informed Billy, and asked Derrick if he could find out the situation in the south.
The next morning Brain told him that they were being passive also, so where was the surge coming from. It happened every so often, a horde of monsters would gather and ravage the land until they dissipated. The magic users in town stared using their class spells in preparation, the druids reinforced the wall for the next few days. The wizards would cast detection spells every hour, the witches would make predictions. Survivalists would set up traps and the blacksmith would pump ou weapons during the monster surge.
The monster surge started coming from the west, one of rarer class users an elementalist made the earth roll and form spikes. The archers started started checking their bows, the druids finally made a move and shifted a portion of the forest in front of the wall.
They were thoroughly prepared for the surge, and started baricading the low leveled into the center of town and section off portions of the town.