***Post Arrival, PA Day 99 9:01 pm, Time Remaining until transfer 8.23:59:00; transfer rank 3,459,832

The 11th wave was in the process of transferring and would most likely be part of the nightly broadcast, but Gin had long since stopped watching because they were typically pretty morbid. Even when humanity won it came at a gruesome cost and he already got enough of that while grinding skills and Soul Pearls.

Even though it had been a few days the treehouse was quiet. It always was when he first arrived. If he wanted a fight, he could always ring the giant Cowbell by the door, but he preferred to do that away from his fortress of solitude. [No need to bring the property values down.]

The first thing he needed was to take stock. He had been in the middle of finalizing his level-up when the alarm clock ripped him from the dream.

Name: GIN

Level: 3

MIND: 6.00

INT: 7

WIS: 6

PERC: 5

BODY: 6.00

STR: 6

AGI: 5

END: 7

SOUL: 5.33

WILL: 8

AURA: 4

CHR: 4

HP: 240 SP: 280

CORE (3): 5 DRAW: 37

MAX STRAIN: 42

SKILLS: Hammer T1, Shield T1, Light Armor T1, Enchanting T1, OPEN SLOT, OPEN SLOT, OPEN SLOT

ATTUNEMENTS: Nature (a) T1, Illusion (a) T1, Ethereal (a) T1, Storm (a) T1, Mana Control(a) T1

ABILITIES: Compress T2, Analyze T2, Butcher T2, Loot T2, Harvest T2, Wildform T1

Stats were wonderful. There was just something about putting numbers to the concepts and seeing the progress as they went up.

He had been in the middle of filling the three open slots when the alarm went off so that probably needed to be the first thing he did. Then maybe organize the mess or go hunting.

Gin had discovered that anything left in the treehouse stayed in the treehouse. Which resulted in him mostly dumping out the pack in between grinding sessions. The stack of treated leather was the largest pile and needed to be dealt with. There was no way he was going to put all that in a pack when he left, especially with the stuff he really wanted to take. The shop might give him some coins for it, but it was all low-tier materials, and the only thing he had used it for was to make three very ugly bags that didn’t even register as having a tier. It would be better if he converted them into something worth some coin. [Maybe that should be one of his new skills.]

He also had a bunch of dried herbs and alchemy ingredients that he didn’t know what to do with. Triple P had a hidden talent for finding them and some of them worked well for Sausage. Speaking of, he grabbed the wooden fire bow and quickly got some Sausages skewered and roasting over the growing flames. [Finally, something that tastes good!]

Cooking would be another decent choice, but he would need to get some equipment that wasn’t iron, and he didn’t technically need a skill to cook. He had been cooking for himself for several years and not just on a grill in the backyard.

Smithing would be good. Everyone and everything seemed to be made of Iron in some form or another. If he were to get his own equipment that wouldn’t poison or creep him out, then he would probably need to make it or find someone who could.

So maybe Leatherworking, Alchemy, and Smithing? He could practice all three of those with the materials he had. He spent another 30 minutes dithering around before pulling the trigger, most of the time was spent trying to remember where he had put the skill/ability tokens.

There were 20 T1 tokens left from the original 24. He had spent 4 tokens learning new skills and attunements when the original attunements suddenly consolidated upon reaching T1. If he used three of his remaining T1 tokens to learn the new skills, that would leave him 17 tokens for something else. He still needed to upgrade Wildform, but he would use a shard from the shop for that just as soon as he had enough experience using it. Grinding that ability up would be a good use of his time.

Skills and abilities seemed to follow a classic cultivator learning curve. Within each Tier, your understanding ranged from Low to Peak, and at Peak, you could force an advancement into the next Tier by using Soul Pearls of a Higher Tier or a shard from the shop. Shards were easier and provided a bonus by reducing the concentration needed to complete the upgrade. Plus, they seemed reasonably available at the lower tiers.

Decisions made, he grabbed the tokens and started implementing the impromptu plan while he snacked on the best food he had tasted in days. Eventually, he was thirsty as well and realized that he hadn’t filled the water bucket. It wasn’t really a bucket, just a hollowed-out bowl of wood that slowly leaked water onto the floor.

Gin caught himself before he could sigh. It had become a habit he was trying to break, so instead he eased the treehouse door open and looked down at the forest floor. He had made this climb every day for ten days in a row and it still caused his stomach to churn. The other option caused even more heartburn, but he needed to train the ability if he hoped to advance it to the next tier before the transfer.

Reaching into his pack he retrieved a clump of black feathers on a leather thong and slipped the loop over his head. The primitive fetish was an unexpected gift that Nevem had secretly placed in his pack along with a detailed series of instructions on what, when, and how he should train for the next ten days. The fetish helped him focus and use Wildform at least until he had full control over the new form. The feathers were from a Raven and allowed Gin to take that shape and potentially fly if he ever got the hang of it. Unfortunately, turning into a Raven and knowing how to fly like one were two different things. Checking that the ability was off its cooldown; he focused on the fetish and activated the transformation. “Kaw, Kaw, Kaw.”

By the third vocalization, he had transformed himself into a giant Raven wearing a backpack. At least it was a comfortable pack and didn’t seem to shift as he stretched his wings out to test their movement. Gin still wasn’t sure where his pants and shirt went, but he was thankful that he didn’t need to get naked to do this.

His first attempt had been more gliding than actual flight and had ended in a spectacular crash when he overcorrected to avoid a tree. Four painful attempts later and he finally managed to stay reasonably airborne. Three days later he learned the most important lesson of all, Look Up, thanks to an unfriendly and rather ugly vulture. That was also when he developed his current phobia against flying.

‘Bogey’ checks complete, he was soon gliding over the treetops headed towards the river.

The river had once been a truly dangerous place, and while it no longer contained giant rock crabs, he still treated it with the respect it deserved. After a quick drink, he settled into a nearby tree and released Wildform to wait.

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The Tutorial zone was a little weird. It was practically daylight or dawn the entire time he was here even though time was also compressed or expanded depending on how you looked at it. Eight hours in real was closer to twenty-four hours in the dream. But the nightly broadcasts often showed Dreamers fighting monster hoards in the middle of the night, so there was most likely a sharp increase in difficulty after transition.

A rustling bush alerted him to the presence of a couple of goblins getting a drink. The two were wary and watched each other’s backs as they filled their bellies and waterskins. Gin was still bitter over the rugby team and personally hated the little cretins. He had tried to chalk that up to Nevem’s interference in the Tutorial but his first encounter with them outside the cave had only underscored their nastiness. A pack of goblins was like a swarm of little piranhas and ate anything they could catch. He had also learned that where there’s one, expect two, where there’s two expect twenty. That was only a slight exaggeration, but it served the point of reminding him to check. Thankfully, there were only five, the two by the river were both Level 1, and the gobs in hiding appeared to be a Level 3, and two Level 2’s. All of them were Tier 1 so there wouldn’t be any penalties to loot or damage, but that was expected as well.

There were only 3 Tier 2 monsters in the starter area. He had killed the Mother Rock Crab and the Orc Chieftain, neither had respawned, so that only left the Ghoul and you could smell that guy coming from a mile away. Nevem had warned Gin to stay away from the Ghoul which was kind of easy since he never seemed to leave the swamp Mausoleum.

Gin had gotten close enough to watch the zombies throwing goblins and other struggling monsters through the broken doors. He would occasionally see a pack of zombies wandering in search of food, but again the smell pretty much gave them away. The skeletons were the ones you had to watch out for. They only clacked when they moved, and they could lay in ambush for eternity.

He would need to separate them and take care of the two with bows first. He would save his core mana in case he needed to insta-cast something. The five mana wasn’t much but 5 seconds of healing or something else could be the difference. His threshold meter was also clear since he hadn’t cast anything today, that gave him a buffer of 42 mana before the headaches would start. At that point, it was a matter of willpower to remain standing. Nevem had forced him to test it, so he would understand his limits. He had a loose range of twice the strain value before he would automatically pass out. He said loose because there were so many other factors that could make concentrating difficult. All of which could mean he passed out in the middle of a fight. Thankfully Tier 0 spells for most attunements had pretty low activation costs.

Gin’s form grew insubstantial and felt lighter giving him three minutes of stealth and protection from projectiles. Fade was the Tier 0 spell for the Ethereal (a) attunement, well Tier 1 now. It hadn’t been anywhere near this useful at Tier 0. Every attunement started at Tier 0 with 1 spell. An attunement was leveled through use and understanding just like a skill, and just like a skill you could categorize that understanding from Low to Peak. When the attunement advanced it gained two new spells, and the previously known spells became better.

Ethereal (a) was the combination or fusion of Air (a) and Shadow (a). When the two primary attunements hit Tier 1, they had fused to become Ethereal (a) at Tier 0. Gin had been disappointed at first until he understood that Ethereal (a) spells were really just fused forms of the original attunement, so Fade had combined aspects of Deflecting Winds and Cloak of Shadows.

The next two spells were more difficult as they would need to be cast at the same time, which increased the cost a little and added a need to concentrate more. Dark bolts of Faerie Fire raced out and stuck the archers in their faces. Dark dancing flames consumed their heads marking them more clearly to the caster while also blinding them. The extra added effect was the heat that would slowly boil the liquids in their heads. The longer the flames lasted the hotter they got, and Gin suspected the goblins were in for the longest 30 seconds of their lives.

Unfortunately, the level three ambusher managed to raise his shield and stopped Gin’s power strike from above at the cost of said shield. The rebound from the strike briefly stunned Gin as well which slowed his follow-up strike that shattered the goblin’s hip and put him out of the following massacre.

Gin watched as the last Tier 1 Goblin ran screaming into the forest. It hadn’t really been a fight and he wasn’t really being merciful by letting the Goblin go. With any luck, the goblins hadn’t learned their lesson and would send another party in retaliation. But Gin needed to clean up the site before that happened.

Reaching into a side pocket he retrieved the hand-sized clay statue of a very hairy and un-lady like boar, but don’t tell her that. Pretty Princess Pig, or Triple P, was a very sensitive lady and did not take well to being disparaged in any way. She was Miss P and everyone else was basically a frog. Gin also removed a couple of nice mushrooms from his pack as well, while channeling a couple of mana into the statue.

“Hey Triple P, you’re looking amazing today and I could really use your help. I’ve got treats if you do.”

Her eyes practically danced in delight until she saw the Goblins and gave him the stink eye and a questioning snort.

“You’re right. I forgot again. What would I do without you? You have to be the smartest Princess in the world.” In truth, Gin had not forgotten, but the prickly pig was so much easier to handle if you buttered up her ego a little.

Triple P took her mushrooms and hid behind a tree as Gin walked over to the goblin corpses. Sure, enough he found five ‘BOOM’ cones, three on the big guy and 1 each on the archers. Two of them even had little bits of metal stuck in their tar-like covering.

“BOOM” Cone – the woody fruit of the Ironwood tree. These small grenades explode when they impact the ground, hurling their incredibly hard seeds violently in all directions. These cones have been stabilized slightly by a coating of sand and tar. They may still explode if not handled with care.

Analyze was so helpful, at least after you knew something. It would actually make some intuitive leaps based on a Dreamers understanding but it also required a base level of knowledge to work with.

The “BOOM” cones remind Gin of the sticky grenades he always saw in old war movies. The goblins would coat them in a watery tar and sand mixture that somewhat stabilized them. The name and description were a little misleading as they did not create a fiery explosion, but they did open with enough force to propel the seeds at a very high speed. Each seed wouldn’t do much damage but there were hundreds of seeds in each cone and the goblins liked to put small pebbles in the tar as well. Only this time it looked like they were upgrading the cones to hurt something or someone allergic to iron.

[Great!]

Gin gave the go-ahead and Triple P began doing her thing as she gave each Goblin a poke and a sniff to collect the Soul Pearls while looking for anything he had missed. Gin was rather grateful when he learned that Triple P was rather picky when it came to looting. For things like animals or plants, she was like a giant vacuum cleaner, hoovering up everything to somehow process it inside her stomach.

Especially, considering she somehow magically created bacon or sausage from the animals she magically butchered. Gin liked bacon and sausage even if it was “Monster” bacon and sausage just not from Goblins and other things that looked a little too human or rotten. Wind Wolves? Good Bacon! Moss Bear? Good Bacon! Carnivorous Deer with the ability to use Shadow step, Incredibly hard to fight but the BEST Dang Sausage he had ever had!!

Which was why he normally just dug a hole and had Triple P roll the goblin corpses into it after they were looted.

Gin spent an hour setting up a special surprise for the goblins. He dug a small fire pit and got it going. Then used Commune to create a special stone box that he hung in a tree so that it was angled down towards the fire. From this angle, it looked like a birdhouse, and he had to keep shooing away curious would-be renters. The other side was a barely dry mud wall, behind which he had packed a bunch of loose gravel from the stream and three “BOOM” cones, two of which were the special versions he had found earlier.

Commune had to be one of the most versatile spells in his arsenal. Nature (a) was the combination of Earth (a) and Life (a). Commune worked on the concept of creating a connection between the caster and the target, as long as the target also fell into the realm controlled by the two primary attunements. Commune with dirt or stone and you could for example shift it to create a hole, a wall, or a very thin layer of dried mud. Commune with anything living and you could stimulate healing or regeneration. Commune with water and you got nothing unless you managed to fall in, then you got wet.

Gin had waited until the hunting horns had gotten a little closer before placing sausages over the flames. It would be a worthy sacrifice if this worked.

Initially, they were very cautious and circled the camp checking for traps before sending in a single level 1 scout to test the food. When it didn’t die and had the audacity to reach for a third sausage, there was a mad dash into the clearing and Gin used Faerie Fire to light the cone that he could just barely see through the hole. The fight had barely begun when the heat destabilized the cones.

Gin had underestimated the results or more likely not factored in the goblins who had brought their own party favors. The resulting chaos left twenty bleeding or dead goblins littering the faux campsite. It also left Gin with a bunch of dents that he now had to remove from his shield.

Deciding that he’d had enough fun for one day, Gin cleaned up the latest mess and flew home. Surprisingly he didn’t find any more “BOOM” Cones in the last batch of goblins. Which was a pity given how well they worked.